


Beyond stars, between mass relays

by DragonstoneH



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Action & Romance, Alternate Universe - Space, Bakugou Katsuki is a Krogan, Crossover, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Mutual Pining, Post-Mass Effect 1
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2019-12-26 23:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18291971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonstoneH/pseuds/DragonstoneH
Summary: Expanding on my idea for IzuMina week 2019 for "space day", Crossover with Mass Effect. Commander Midoriya of the Systems Alliance has a mission and needs a team, including a very special girl... Izuku and Mina start on what seems like a simple mission, that is not what it seems. Will they find the truth? Will they find love, too?





	1. A new team

 “Commander Midoriya, as both an N7 marine and officer with the Systems Alliance Navy, it seems fitting that you should captain the SSV Yuuei, the first in our Normandy Class.” Admiral Enji Todoroki’s voice was derogatory, the man had clearly wanted his son, Shouto, to be the ship’s master. Despite Shouto being a good friend from the officer corps, Izuku Midoriya knew that would have been pure nepotism, just as how much the Admiral, nicknamed Endeavor behind his back, had tried pushing his other son, Touya, as a prospect for SPECTRE status.

That had gone most horribly, as Touya had clearly wanted nothing with his father and had defected for Cerberus. And now, with Commander Shepard, humanity’s biggest icon, gone, the Alliance needed to pick up the slack.

“The ship comes with a mission, Midoriya. You’re to pick up a few crew members and then hunt down a crew of Cerberus operatives, last spotted exchanging fire with a Quarian ship near Haestrom. You’re not a Spectre, so keep it low key, commander. Now move it, I’ll send you the details to the ship’s terminal”

“Yes, sir!” said Izuku, despite knowing all the details of Admiral Endeavor’s many flaws, he was still his superior, ever since Admiral Yagi had retired from the fleet. _Team members, huh?_ After Shepard’s success against Saren, the Alliance had been much more open in their cooperation with other Citadel races, especially with Turians and Asari. _He’d not have mentioned anything if it was just a squad of N7 marines…_

The first file in his data pad was about the team mates; a young krogan battlemaster named Bakugou, a Turian mechanic named Hatsume, and a half-human, half-Quarian named Ashido. _Human-Quarian? I had never heard of something like that…_ It was no secret that Izuku found Quarian women quite attractive, their suits and masks just increasing the mystery…Lieutenant Mineta had probably teased him enough about that anyway.

Endeavor’s angry email mentioned a bar in the Citadel where the team had been summoned, conveniently; Izuku would have not enjoyed too much having to run around the entire Citadel just to get on with the mission and finally see his new ship! A skytaxi ride later and he was in the same sector as the bar, the Dark Star Lounge, in Zakera Ward.

The atmosphere was quieter than he had expected for the type of establishment, but it still looked like quite the fun place to visit with friends. Friends that didn’t recommend ryncol, like Ensign Kaminari!

He saw Hatsume, a slightly shorter than average female Turian, with pink markings on her exo-skeletal face, and Bakugou, a huge krogan with orange and black armour, and a grenade launcher strapped to his leg as comfortably as Izuku carried his Carnifex pistol. With all the confidence his training gave him, he waved at them “Uh…hey! I’m Midoriya, you guys are in my team, then?”

The Turian, Hatsume, was instantly on him, examining his armour and weapons, even taking his helmet from his hands “Oooh, N7, good stuff…can be improved further with a bit of eezo…maye you are biotic? I can enhance biotics…Gloves need calibrating…lots of calibrating…”

“Excuse me…Hatsume? Maybe we could calibrate the ship too if you’ll go there?”

The Turian smiled at him “Yes! I’ll make your ship better than the SSV Normandy, even if it is a Citadel taxi at the moment! I just know it! I’ll get going, get my tools, get some eezo…some dextro chocolate…” she rambled on and on, just like Izuku did when talking about ships. He could already tell he’d be friends with the mechanic.

As the Turian left, Izuku noticed that Bakugou hadn’t even moved from his seat. His face contorted into a snarl and he said “In Tuchanka we’ve got a word for humans as weak as you: “Deku”!” He got up and squared up to Izuku “I ain’t following a Deku, not even to kill Cerberus shitheads!” he said. Izuku wasn’t going to respond to the krogan’s petty bullying, so he answered in the only way he knew krogans understood; a headbutt.

Bakugou staggered back a step and then laughed “You’re still a Deku but you’ve got balls to do that. You do know that with my biotics I could explode your face in an instant, don’t you?”

“In Earth we have a word for loud mouthed brutes who are clearly more bark than bite, “Kacchan”. You’re clearly a Kacchan, mate” The krogan only laughed, scratched his butt and emptied his ryncol. “A Deku and a Kacchan, hunting for Cerberus. Sounds like fun, I haven’t killed a human in weeks. I’ll go and find all my ridiculous amounts of explosives and meet you at the ship, “Captain”.”

“It is commander, and I share the sentiment, fighting Cerberus will be great! I should go” with that Izuku left the krogan in search for the final teammate, Ashido. He walked over to the bar, intending to ask the bartender, but then he heard a commotion, the all too familiar sounds of Mattock battle rifles answered by the bursts of a Quarian shotgun.

In seconds he was running towards the source of the noise, a back alley just outside the bar. A squad of Blue Suns mercs was firing at a support beam, where a Quarian was taking cover, occasionally moving to take potshots, but the mercs were too far away for her weapon to be effective.

Izuku had not been seen yet, so he could ambush the mercs and help the Quarian! For an instant he cursed his lack of biotics, if he could have just slammed the men to the ground it might have all been resolved non-lethally. But the Blue Suns were clearly trying to kill the Quarian, and Izuku was not going to let them hurt her, whatever it took!

He ran as quietly as possible, his footsteps drowned by the gunfire, and came up on one of the Blue Suns troopers from behind. Activating his omni-blade, Izuku stabbed at the human mercenary, taking him down. Before the other three had realized their comrade was gone, Izuku took out his Carnifex handgun and shot the first enemy, a huge Batarian.

“You will not kill her!” yelled Izuku as he took cover behind a dumpster that smelled of dextro alcohol. Holding his breath, Izuku took a lucky potshot that hit a merc’s rifle, destroying it, so he rushed in; shaping his omin-blade into a giant energy fist, he punched the disarmed Blue Suns trooper, yelling “Smash!”

But he had placed himself right where the last merc could shoot him. _Escape now, Quarian girl!_ he thought, as he saw the Mattock’s barrel aiming down at him. A shot was fired, and Izuku felt an impact, but it had come from the side!

Izuku rolled around the ground, intertwined with the person who had saved him: the Quarian girl. And he saw her blood, red like a human’s, coming out of a tear in her pressurized suit. But instinct dictated that he fight first and then attempt any medical aid, so he aimed down at the Blue Suns trooper, and fired, clean at his head, despite being upside down on the floor.

The Quarian tried getting up, but only managed to stand on one knee, her hand immediately going to her side, to where she was bleeding. Izuku immediately rushed in to support her, holding her and putting her free arm around his neck.

“You’re going to be alright! I’ll take you away from here and we’ll uhhh…get you fixed! Don’t worry!” Izuku hoped he was reassuring as he tried to hold her up gently and support her as they limped away. He noticed she was shorter than him, and that her legs seemed strong and powerful…but he didn’t stare at them, he didn’t want the Quarian girl to think he was some kind of pervert!

“I saw a med clinic close by when I arrived, you’ll be healthy in no time!” Izuku told the girl, terrified at the thought of her wounds infecting and killing her, as Quarians had extremely weak immune systems. And her suit was torn, so even if the wound didn’t kill her, bacteria in the air might…

“It just grazed me, I’m okay!” she said, and Izuku was surprised at how sweet her voice was, how kind she sounded. “It’s not like I’m a skinny Salarian, I’m strong!” she said, laughing. _Focus, Izuku, you can’t just fall in love with a girl’s voice when she could die! Hurry up!_

“It’s just around the corner, miss…I don’t know your name, sorry…” Izuku felt just as awkward as before the academy talking to the girl. He’d fought against the Geth a year earlier, he’d survived thresher maws, he was captain of his own ship now…and a cute girl still made him stutter and blush.

“Oh, I’m Mina! Nice to meet you! What about you?”

Did he use name, rank and number? No, that was for interrogations with the enemy…did he just use his first name? Oh no, he was muttering again, would she think it was creepy? “That mumbling is kinda cute but I didn’t really get it…” she said.

“Uhhh…I’m Izuku Midoriya!” he finally said, managing to string coherent words at last. Thankfully, they were there at the clinic, so they barge in to the front desk. A Salarian attendant spoke to them, as quickly as every Salarian “I’m Morlan, currently working as front desk attendant for Doctor Chiyo also known in her youth as The Recovery Girl due to…Oh, excuse me, you are wounded, please go in.”

Mina’s legs were getting shaky, despite earlier having said that it was nothing, so Izuku just picked her up against his chest, like a bride in olden times, and brought her to a hospital bed. “You see? I told you we would make it!” he said, as he watched the mentioned doctor arrive.

Doctor Chiyo was an ancient Asari, and incredibly short, just a bit above a meter twenty. “Quarian? No, legs don’t match. Five fingers, too. Weird. Child, tell me what happened, who you are, and I’ll see how to treat you.” The doctor’s voice was strict and lacked patience, which startled Mina a bit, and her hand looked for Izuku’s. Without giving himself a chance to overthink, Izuku squeezed her hand, trying to be comforting for the injured girl.

He also realized that, in an effort to not look like a pervert, he hadn't even noticed that Mina’s legs weren’t curved like a Quarian’s…rather, like a human’s! And indeed, she had five fingers instead of three, he saw in her hand in his!

“Okay madam doctor…keelah. I was going to a meeting, cause I know stuff about some Cerberus people doing bad stuff, and out of nowhere these thugs appeared! They said “Suit rat! Give us the data pad!”, I think they confused me with someone else…”

Doctor Chiyo sighed, then continued “The _injury_ , I don’t need your life’s story, miss…I also asked for your name!” As the elderly woman complained, she cleaned Mina’s injury with some sort of antiseptic that made her wince and tighten her grip on Izuku’s hand.

“Oh, yeah! I’m Mina Ashido vas Qwib Qwib! Though now I’m with the exploration vessel “Terua”…Ah, yes! The mercs were gonna kill the handsome boy, so I pushed him out the way and they got me!” _Handsome boy?!?!_ Izuku felt his face burning in a plasma-red blush.

“Kid, you look like you got a fever too, I’ll charge you later.” Doctor Chiyo said “Seems like the shot went through at a very shallow angle. You’re half-asari?”

Mina let a sigh of relief and then answered “I’m half human! My dad met my mom during that war with the Turians and they had me!” It finally clicked for Izuku: she was in his team!

“Explains the legs and all. So, you won’t die if your suit gets pierced?”

She brought her free hand to her helmet, tapping the glass in a thinking manner “I think I’d survive like 48 hours, but I might get the sniffles!” She laughed, and Izuku couldn’t help but join in, the relief that she wouldn’t die there was quite a lot.

“I guess you don’t have a change of clothes, though, so I’ll have to cut up your suit a bit before stitching it back up. You’re paying, or is he paying?” said the Doctor, pointing at them.

“I’ll pay, madam doctor! Miss vas Qwib Qwib saved my life!” Izuku said, trying to remember if Quarian ship names worked like that.

“Thanks pal!” said Mina “But please call me Mina!”

The doctor clicked her tongue and said “I’d say get a room, you two, but that might give the lad a heart attack!” Then she laughed sardonically “And I need at least one conscious client to get paid. Anyway, if you can take off your helmet, I can give you anaesthesia via some gummies. Or do you prefer the injection?” The tiny Asari brandished a huge syringe, and Mina just held on tighter to his hand.

“The helmet! The helmet!” she fumbled at the neck connections and filters, and took it off to reveal the most attractive face Izuku had ever seen; golden eyes with black sclerae, a delicate nose, full lips with a ready smile, pink hair that went in every direction and looked incredibly soft, and her pink skin just completed the look. He gulped and, realizing he had been staring, he looked away.

“Yeah, yeah, she’s cute…you should have seen me eight hundred years ago! Now that was beauty! Eat this.” Doctor Chiyo gave Mina a gummy shaped like a hanar, which she chewed eagerly. “It tastes really good! Better than those helmet rations!”

“Looks like you can digest both dextro and regular foods, interesting. Now you, boy, stop looking all lovey-dovey and give Morlan my credits! I wanna gamble some with that old Turian Gran Torino!”

Izuku checked one last time on Mina, who gave him a smile and a thumbs up, and then went to pay for the treatment. It wasn’t too expensive, but he was still thankful that it came out of Admiral Endeavor’s budget, not his own.

He returned to find Mina snoring softly as doctor Chiyo finished stitching her wound with some medgel, disinfecting it and then placing a plaster above it, which she explained would be absorbed into the skin over time and give Mina nutrients directly in the affected area. Then Chiyo closed up Mina’s suit “At least I didn’t damage that tacky pink cloth, them Quarians can get touchy about such things. When she wakes up, you should take her home, boy.”

Izuku didn’t think the cloth adornment looked tacky at all, in fact, he felt it matched nicely with her pretty face. And he would certainly make sure she got safely to the _SSV Yuuei_ , she was a valuable crew member now, and he cared immensely for all his crew, even annoying ones like Lieutenant Mineta! And obviously if asked, he would never admit that the huge crush he was developing for Mina played any part in wanting to keep her safe and see her happy…

Some time later, he sat on a chair that the old Asari doctor had allowed him to move so he could be close to Mina. He had been waiting for the anaesthesia to wear off a bit so they might get a cab to the docks, and Mina could get proper sleep there, she just looked so tired, it made him want to cover her with a nice blanket, just by instinct.

Then Mina woke up, yawning, and said “Oh, hey! It is the handsome boy! I’m still super sleepy, but we should really get going…I have to find this “Commander Midoriya” person to go on a quest with! Is he your dad? You said you were Izuku Midoriya, right?”

For some reason it flattered Izuku immensely that, even while still under a bit of anaesthesia, Mina had remembered his name! “Oh…it actually is me! I’m commander Izuku Midoriya!”

They walked a bit so Mina could properly wake up, and then she pouted a bit, seemingly considering something… “Aw shucks! So that means you are gonna be my boss?”

Izuku didn’t know what to think at that question, was it an issue? “Uhh…I guess?”

“That sucks! I was just gonna ask you on a date to go dancing to Purgatory!”

“I treat my team as equals though and…date? Ehh?” He was truly at a loss for words.

The pink girl winked at him “I’m kidding! Not on the date part, that’s still a thing! The part about it being weird!”

“Oh, alright then…” Then Izuku finally understood everything she had been saying “Yes! I’d like to! You saved my life and all, I could never say no!” Her smile was everything good in the galaxy that he had wanted to defend when enlisting in the Systems Alliance.

They chatted along the way in the taxi and up to the ship, which they finally admired in awe. “You think they might let me become Mina Ashido vas Yuuei instead?” she asked as he showed her to her quarters, which she would be sharing with Sergeant Utsushimi and Specialist Asui.

“I’d really like that!” Izuku said, he knew enough about Quarians to know that their ship was their real home. It may have just been a couple of hours, but he wanted Mina on his ship, for a very long time. After talking a bit more, about the schedule, about the Cerberus crew they would be hunting, led by a wanted assassin called Himiko Toga…even about Earth.

Mina might make him feel flustered and a bit awkward, but he had felt chemistry such as that with few other people. Setting up a time to go to Purgatory for their date, Izuku finally said good bye, just the way the hero of the Alliance, Shepard, would have done “I should go”.


	2. "...and this is my favourite nightclub in the Citadel"

After almost sneezing up on the cute Commander Midoriya, Mina Ashido vas Qwib Qwib had decided to keep her helmet on for the rest of their “date”. Maybe it wasn’t a “date-date”, probably , but it was certainly nice to go dancing and have some fun! Especially after that close encounter with Cerberus.

A week earlier Mina had been aboard the _Pinky Alien Queen_ , a very small research vessel that the Migrant Fleet allowed her to co-captain with her best pal, Tooru Hagakure vas Tonbay. A Quarian with an even weaker immune system than most, Mina had doubts she would ever see her friend’s face, even if the Migrant Fleet somehow acquired one of those Salarian ships with clean rooms where Quarians could safely be outside their suits for prolonged times.

Tooru was the closest thing she had to a sister, handy with a wrench and scrappy in a fight. Mina was the _Pinky Alien Queen_ ’s pilot, Tooru used the scanners, and together they made the best out of their junky ship to scout ahead for supplies for the fleet or join bigger expeditions. The mission they had been in, to the planet Haestrom, had been a small reconnaissance operation in advance for something big the admirals had planned, in particular the researcher Rael Zorah. So Mina and Tooru had set out from the fleet, stationed then in the Skyllian Verge, and stopped at Illium to refuel.

Of course they had been shunned and mistreated, called “suit rats” and worse, and a few Batarians had even tried mugging them; Mina’s shotgun, equipped with acid shells of her own design, had dissuaded them quite effectively. They had spent two days in the port, denied fuel by disdainful Volus merchants, having to sleep in the ship in shifts so mercs wouldn’t steal it.

And then they had received help. A young Asari woman called Momo Yaoyorozu had spotted them and started talking to them, the first being to treat them like people since leaving the fleet. Somehow, Momo had cleared everything away, the two Quarians had received their fuel, and Momo had even invited them to a fancy restaurant to eat. And then, she had volunteered to join them, saying she was bored of Asari teachings and wanted to travel the galaxy.

Three alien girls, on a rickety old ship, barely larger than an Alliance dropship, had set out for Haestrom and arrived with good time. Mina had carefully placed the _Pinky Alien Queen_ on one of Haestrom’s Lagrange points and turned off the engines, just leaving life support on for Momo to breathe. It was then a week of readings, tests and scans as planned…until they had seen a sleek ship, white and yellow, just in scanner range. A Cerberus ship.

They had all tensed up. Cerberus had attacked the Migrant Fleet before, when looking after some human biotic. And when the ship had gotten close enough that they could read a name on the bulwark, Momo had gasped; she had seen the same name on the news, on a ship fleeing after the brazen murder of a wealthy Salarian businessman in Sur’Kesh. It was the _Stain_.

Tooru had insisted they contact anyone within radio distance of the _Stain_ being sighted, with one of them leaving in the little manoeuvrable escape pod, Tooru’s _Invisible Gal_ , to get the full information to the Citadel. If they put most of the ship’s fuel on the escape pod, they could get to a mass relay quick and get someone here! As their best pilot, Mina had volunteered for that task, while Tooru and Momo would remain and watch the ship, which had just landed on Haestrom.

And thus Mina had travelled for days on a cramped escape pod, feeling even smaller than usual when seeing all the planets, stars and cosmic bodies all around her little vessel. It wasn’t fun traveling alone. By the time she had made it to the mass relay and out the other side, on the Citadel, Mina had received a bit of frantic research by Momo on the _Stain_ , which she had sent to anyone who would listen. Apparently, the Systems Alliance, the humans, had believed, and Mina had received some mail, asking her to go meet some “Commander Midoriya”.

And that had been everything that had happened so far until she had met him. And he hadn't been some gnarly old officer like Mina had expected, but a boy about her age, not particularly tall, about as ripped as one would expect a soldier…and he had such an innocent smile. He was just Mina’s type! The fact that he had been extremely gallant in “rescuing the damsel”, had paid for the scary old doctor and the look in his eyes when he had seen Mina’s face just completed everything. Raised a Quarian, Mina was seriously sceptical on “love at first sight”, as Quarians didn’t really see each other until intimacy. But perhaps she could now believe on “big crush at first sight”!

After some hours to get settled on the _SSV Yuuei,_ Midoriya had taken her to eat some human foods that Mina’s dad had spoken about before, like “sandwiches”, “potato chips” and “soda”. It was miles better than the dextro rations she mostly ate with the Migrant Fleet! For once she thanked her hybrid stomach for being able to digest other food (normally it just made her a bit hungrier).

After food, Mina had decided she would call the lad by his first name, as she had insisted on the same for her, and she had dragged him along by the hand to Purgatory, a nightclub she had heard a lot of good things about from many other Quarians who had visited the Citadel during their Pilgrimage. The music was good, the drinks were tasty, and all aliens were welcome.

While it didn’t quite look like Izuku’s scene, Mina thought he had been enjoying himself, joining her in the dance floor and flailing around with a big smile on his face. Frankly, his dancing was very bad, completely uncoordinated, but it made Mina extremely happy to see Izuku try. And apparently a couple regulars on the club thought so too, with one even commenting that it was good to see an Alliance officer dancing better than Commander Shepard. When Mina had asked about that, Izuku had taken her to a quiet corner of Purgatory and showed her a vid on his omni tool.

It showed the hero of the Citadel, the first human Spectre and all-around badass Commander Shepard, awkwardly shuffling around with a very focused look on his face. In full N7 armour. While a Krogan beside him was completely out-dancing him. Mina had never seen something so bizarre, and it made her laugh so much! Izuku joined in the laughter, but Mina…she was breathlessly hooting and even clapping a hand on his shoulder.

Finally Mina realized just how close to each other they were standing, and for some reason she couldn’t stop looking at his lips. They were close enough, and both seemed to be leaning in… And Mina’s nose itched, and she felt the sneeze coming in just in time to sneeze into her hand, looking away from Izuku “Ahhhhh-choooooo!!!” Her calculations of how long it would take for the Citadel’s air to give her the sniffles had been too optimistic.

“Bless you!” said Izuku, reaching for a handkerchief on the pocket of the uniform he was wearing.

Mina wiped her nose a bit and asked “Bless me? Is that a compliment or something?”

Izuku blushed hard and said “Ehh…it is a slang thing, I guess? We say it when people sneeze in some parts of Earth? And uhh…about compliments I…” Mina sneezed again, sadly ending that train of thought too soon.     

Mina gave him a thumbs up and was about to say she was okay when she sneezed again, ever harder than before. Quickly, before another sneeze could make her look like a snot-covered fool, she took her helmet from her back, where she had strapped it just in case, and she put it on. In an instant the helmet was sealed, and the HUD was online, showing exactly what was causing the allergic reaction; dust, air taxi exhaust fumes, whatever had been used to sweep the floor…even distant pollen drifting in from the Presidium’s parks had made it to her lungs! The helmet started filtering the air and she could feel her lungs purifying again.

“Sorry! I thought I would have more time and uhhh…” should she mention that they were just about to kiss? Would it be awkward? Maybe wait a couple days and try again! She could see the boy liked her, with how flustered he was and how thoughtful he was over every little action to do with her…That look on his face that just screamed to the world “I care!” and that anyone with eyes could see.

“I’m the one who should be sorry…” he started, looking down, ashamed “…cause I took you around to dusty places and all…I should have been more careful about that, I didn’t want to make you sick.”

After a second to recover from how absolutely cute this hunky space marine was looking with the sad puppy eyes, Mina said “Don’t be silly! I chose this club! And we still got some dancing to do! And…ahhhh-chooo!” Another sneeze, damn! Some airborne anti-allergy meds were cycled into her air filters, filling her helmet with a minty smell. “Do you wanna dance a bit more? I could even teach you some moves!”

She was keeping the fact that the moves she intended to teach were for couples, and they involved quite a bit of hand holding. And she would probably not mention how sensitive the haptic feedback on her gloves was, it was about as good as hand holding with no gloves!

Izuku smiled at her, more confident than when they had started dancing. The boy sure adapted quickly to new situations, thought Mina. “Sure, I’m always ready to learn!”

Mina held out her right hand “Then gimme your hand and follow me!” They went back to the floor, settling in near a couple of Turians. “Okay…you have to put your hand…there! And the other one holds mine…and done!” Mina placed his hand on her hip, not exactly as Quarians taught it, but he kinda liked the touch, even through the thick layers of her suit. Her hand on his shoulder, Mina started moving slowly, so he would ease into the dance.

“Hmm…it’s kind of like the old school salon dancing they taught us in the Academy…” said Izuku, a bit lost in thought. It made Mina curious.

“So you do know at least one style of dance, huh? Did you dance with a pretty girl?” Mina said, teasingly. And for some reason she felt a tiny bit jealous of whoever that may have been.

“Well, I took Lieutenant Melissa Shield to the graduation dance, but she’s kind of my sister since my…that’s probably a boring story, though! I won’t bother you with that!”

Like a sister, then, thought Mina, pleased for some reason. Maybe cause it would allow her to continue teasing Izuku! “Does that mean I’m the only pretty girl you have danced with?” she asked, leaning in much closer so that their bodies were touching.

“Yes! Uhh…No! Eh…well, yeah…” Mina’s heart sped up when he admitted he thought she was pretty. She thought about further teasing him, but decided against it. She would instead enjoy the dance!

Some time later they left the club and returned to the ship, and Izuku walked her to her quarters, where she finally met her roommates, Asui and Utsushimi, both N7 marines, Utsushimi a powrful biotic, apparently. Thankfully, neither of the girls mentioned that their commander and Mina had been holding hands, one incident of a crewmember saying “favouritism” had been enough (when the Krogan Bakugou had angrily told Izuku that he should have gone sparring with him instead of “going on dates”, and Izuku had headbutted the Krogan, apparently for the second time).

“I’ll uhh…see you later Mina!” he started saying. Asui and Utsushimi, not wanting to interrupt a nice moment, but with faces full of that “we’re gonna gossip so much later” face, had in unison said an Alliance standard “I should go” and left.

“I guess I can say a bit more then, huh?” Izuku said, scratching the back of his neck. “Well, I had a great time out there, Mina.”

“I’m glad you did! I loved it too…”

Mina saw Izuku take a deep breath and get a determined look on his face, and then he hugged her “I uhh…it was a date and all…” Mina hugged him back “It totally was!”


	3. A very obvious trap by space pirates

A few hours after Izuku’s date, the _SSV Yuuei_ was fully loaded and ready to depart. The Mako tank in the hold was secured, every rifle and pistol was provisioned with ammunition, and they had enough food supplies to enjoy good quality meals for up to two months. Everything paid with Admiral Endeavor’s credits, which brought a grim smile to Izuku’s face.

Most Alliance ships used a helmsman while the captain stood on a platform over the star map, but Izuku preferred to stir his own ship. Perhaps it was a leftover from when he had helmed on Toshinori Yagi’s ship, the carrier _Plus Ultra,_ or how useless he had felt when promoted to second in command there, but he like the feel of the ship under him. And the Yuuei was a Normandy class ship, the best they had…and he could feel it.

“Commander Midoriya to all hands, we are leaving port. Everyone get in position, I’m lifting off!” he said, pulling the stick backward for thrust after Lt. Mineta removed the docking system. “Fuel temperature steady, safe levels, everything good, Midoriya!” said Lieutenant Iida.

“Let’s fly this bird. Steady first, then…smash. Acceleration and we have liftoff.” The _Yuuei_ sped away from the Citadel, passing by the defence fleet and hailing them as protocol dictated. The _Destiny Ascension_ answered first, wishing them good fortune. Then Admiral Endeavor’s ship, the _Prominence Burn,_ sent a message. “I’ll read the text, commander” said Lt. Iida “’Accomplish the mission or I’m giving your ship to my son.’ Sir, there is coarse language here, against the rules! Should I still read it anyway?” Iida was perhaps the most responsible, earnest and all around honest in the fleet, in Izuku’s opinion. “Sure, let’s see what else is there.”

“‘I don’t care about the fucking protocols, I will have my way.’ Commander, I feel dirty after saying such a curse, permission to wash the bad taste away from my mouth when we reach the mass relay?”

“Granted.”

Izuku had no doubt he would accomplish the mission. If not for the mission itself, or for the pride of serving humanity, then to spite Endeavor, that asshole. “We are out of Citadel orbit and nearing the mass relay. All crew, this might shake a tiny bit.” The _Yuuei_ flew so smoothly, so perfectly, that the usual jolt of mass relay travel was minuscule, almost imperceptible.

The travel time between relays was instantaneous. But relays were connected in a network that would sometimes be hard to navigate for some ships, and at times involved FTL travel through space to reach a relay necessary to get to the final destination. Haestrom needed a few jumps, jumps which Izuku could trust to his second in command, Iida, or to his third, Mineta. In a small ship, it wasn’t unusual to have shifts to sleep and have the helm like that, and Izuku was really, really feeling tired.

“Mineta, it’s about time for crew dinner. Is it alright that I give you the bridge while we eat?”

The short officer gave him a thumbs up “Sure, commander. I’ll treat your ship like a fine lady.” Izuku didn’t know if he should be worried or comforted by that, Mineta was a bit of a pervert when on leave.

With that settled, Izuku and Iida, with some of the other officers, went down to the chow hall to eat. The ship had a crew of 35 people, and chow had a capacity for 18 people, so they could have half the crew there at a time. When they got there, Izuku was about to go greet the cook, Warrant Officer Satou, when a very cute voice called for him “Izuuuukuuuu!”

In a second Mina was beside him, moving her hands up and down excitedly “You never said you were a pilot too!”

“Yeah…I like controlling my own ship! It feels…powerful. Like the next best thing to being a comic book superhero!” When he saw Mina didn’t really get what a superhero was, Izuku added “They are uhh…an Earth thing! Maybe I can show you later!” While they were caught in conversation, it seemed that Iida had excused himself and was quietly talking with Sergeant Utsushimi. Good thing that Izuku didn’t give a damn about fraternisation rules on his ship.

Izuku saw that most of the people in the mess hall were part of the strike team; Utsushimi, Specialist Asui and Corporal Kirishima, who seemed quite close. Bakugou, the grumpy Krogan, was also there with them, sitting next to Kirishima and with less of a scowl in his face. A few other marines he didn’t quite know and then there were a few from the crew, like Iida, Ensign Kendou and Petty Officer Higari Majima, known by the nickname “Power Loader”, who was talking with the Turian girl Hatsume, and seemed to have aged a year with the Turian as his charge.

“Are you gonna do a cool speech, Izuku?” asked Mina.

“I think I could try…I’m not sure how inspiring it’ll be though…” he answered. “Hey, everyone, can I have your attention? Good. As we set out on this mission, to track down the Cerberus ship _Stain,_ I have all the confidence a commander could have on his crew. You are all the best, and I’m glad to have you here! Let’s go get those Cerberus terrorists!” The crew cheered a bit, though Izuku felt like it had been a pretty underwhelming speech.

“You should sit next to me!” said Mina, taking him to the table. She took off her helmet, apparently deciding to eat human food again this time.

“I should go get the food” said Izuku “Save my spot!” He met Satou, the ship’s cook and greeted him, talking a bit about the mission and how Satou felt the crew’s mood was. Everyone seemed mostly excited to go, and no member of the crew had been to Haestrom, as far as Satou knew.

With two trays full of food, Izuku thanked the cook and brought them over to Mina, who had been joined by Iida and Utsushimi. “…and then he took me to the doctor and held my hand when the scary old Asari started nagging me! It was the best! Oh…hey there!”

“Hey, Mina! Here’s your food!”

She thanked him a lot, then explained that Utsushimi had asked her for the entire story of how she had ended aboard the ship “…and I still didn’t get to my date with Izuku, Camie!” she said.

“O.M.G., that’s like…adorbs! Didn’t know you were such a softie, commander!” said Camie, winking at Izuku.

Iida opened his mouth, then closed it, and then said “I was about to comment on the commander and miss vas Qwib Qwib, but it would have been hypocritical, seeing as I have a relationship with a crew member myself!” Mina was instantly all over the second in command and the biotic girl, asking them all sorts of questions while eating. Izuku didn’t talk that much, he enjoyed seeing his friends be more relaxed like this and not have to be disciplined soldiers all day long.

“So, Haestrom, huh?” asked Camie “What’s the deal with all that? With Cerberus?”

Mina started “I was on a ship with my best friend Tooru and a nice Asari called Momo, just doing our thing, having a bit of banter, listening to a bit of music…and then we see this ship on the scanners, the _Stain_. All white and yellow and black. I don’t know that much about it, but Cerberus once tracked down a guy to our fleet and opened fire on us. It was horrible…we don’t like ‘em very much!”

Izuku then added “That ship is fast, and the hull is shaped a bit like a Normandy-class, but smaller. I think it is a prototype, because I don’t think that it is the final version and they probably want a…Oh, I was mumbling again? Sorry. Anyway, I think they could have some twenty crew members. Maybe. Also, that Himiko Toga, their leader, she’s deadly. That Salarian in Sur’Kesh? He had guards all around, and Toga didn’t even use a gun or biotics.”

“A skilled assassin should still not be a match for proud Alliance soldiers! We’ll catch her, Midoriya!” said Iida.

After the meal there was still about an hour left on Mineta’s shift on the ship’s helm, and after that Iida would take over for another three. Four hours to sleep a bit, and he really needed it. Unlike the original Normandy, the _SSV Yuuei_ didn’t have a large room for the commander, he just had a small unit, as large as the other officers’, just separated for privacy. Compelled by his old-fashioned values, Izuku accompanied Mina to her room and wished her good night “At least I think it would be night time on the standard clock? I’m not sure…just, eh, sleep well?”

“Thanks! And thanks for bringing me back home safely!” she said, a bit of sarcasm in the last part.

“I uhh…I did want to make sure you were okay and I…I kinda wanted to spend a little bit more time with you.”

She smiled brightly, and Izuku thanked the Protheans and human deities and everything that he was able to see that smile. “You’re the cutest, you know? G’night!” Mina then stretched a bit to reach his cheek and gave him a little smooch, before quickly putting on her helmet. She waved and closed the door, thankfully, cause Izuku would have been even more flustered if she had seen his little jump of joy.  

He got to his bunk and drifted off to sleep easily, a smile on his face, his hand softly touching the cheek Mina had kissed.

Only to wake up some hours later to the sound of Mineta ringing the doorbell. “What is it? I still have like an hour of sleep left.”

Mineta let himself in as Izuku wiped the sleep away from his eyes and put some pants on. “Two things, commander! First, why didn’t you tell your best friend in all Citadel space that you were seducing that half-Quarian hottie? You seriously keep ol’ Minoru outta the loop, mate!”

Izuku sighed long, annoyed “Well, cause you aren’t my best friend in all of Citadel space, I guess. And I don’t like you calling my friend Mina a “hottie”, Mineta.”

“Ouch…that got the commander angry and jealous? Anyway I totally called it with your Quarian feti-“

“Mineta. You said you had two things to discuss, did you really wake me up to bother me about dumb things?”

The short lieutenant made a face of mock pain “Relationships are a beautiful thing, Midoriya, but with such a hostile audience, I guess I shall not talk about that anymore. The second thing…ah, yeah. It was the important thing, too! We’ve got a ship right on our path, it has a distress beacon and everything. Iida on the bridge wanted to know what we should do.”

“What does the beacon say?”

“A very non-descript SOS. My gut tells me pirates.”

Mineta’s little beer belly did seem to have good instincts, most times. The diminutive officer then suggested “Want me to get a few ground teams ready while you take your morning piss or shave or whatever?”

“Yeah, thanks Mineta.”

Izuku suited up after washing away whatever sleep remained, donning his customized N7 armour. Unlike the best-known suit of N7 armour, Commander Shepard’s, Izuku’s had several green and white details that almost looked like war paint, and a dark green bunny spray painted on a pauldron, which for some reason had reminded him of Toshinori Yagi, his mentor. Maybe the floppy ears reminded him of his hair after retirement? He didn’t quite know.

He met the strike teams on the deployment deck, where Hatsume was tinkering with the Mako, which was already looking very much non-regulation. Bakugou and Kirishima were sparring, already fast friends, probably because Kirishima also had a thick skull and had head butted Bakugou at some point.

Specialist Asui was cleaning an M-98 Widow sniper rifle, almost as long as she was tall. Iida was fiddling around with his white and blue combat armour, trying not to stare at the tight biotic enhancing suit his girlfriend Utsushimi was wearing; it was useless, as Utsushimi kept moving around, “stretching for the mission”. And finally, Mina was there, adding a couple armour plates to her suit and adjusting the pink cloth veil she used around it.

“We picked up a signal from a merchant vessel, apparently they got stranded. I think it is a bit fishy, so we’re going armed to the teeth, just in case. If they are not pirates looking for an easy score, we’ll help them if we can.” Izuku told his team.

“Inside we’ll divide in two teams; I will lead one, Iida, you take the other. Take Utsushimi, Bakugou and Asui. I’ll bring Kirishima and Mina. And…Hatsume, are you in for this?”

The Turian emerged from one of the Mako’s panels “SURE! I shall bring many babies and test them on unsuspecting pirates!”

“Then you’re with me too!” yelled Izuku back.

Carefully, Mineta docked the _Yuuei_ with the mysterious merchant ship, and both teams walked in, weapons in hand. “Iida, please take the left, we’ll take the right.” Izuku said when the corridor split in two. “If you find an engine room or controls of any kind, see if you can’t get the lights on.” It was pitch dark, which made them rely on night vision equipment.

“See you on the other side, Midoriya” said Iida as he led his team down the assigned door.

“I’ve got your back, Izuku” said Mina behind him. Izuku gripped his M8 Avenger rifle a bit tighter and opened the door.

The team moved in, scanning every inch of the room, looking for hostiles, for civilians, for anyone. To no avail. They moved like that for three storerooms, all empty, every box seemingly devoid of contents as well. It looked more and more like a trap, but why hadn't it been sprung yet?

The next room they found was large and circular, and it held a container covered with a tarp. And in front of it was a man, wearing light armour, a helmet with a bird’s beak, and a coat over all. “You have fallen in my trap!” said the man, and Izuku felt instant dislike for him, he sounded like a smug prick. “The trap of…Overhaul! I will change the galaxy! I-”

Izuku interrupted him, firing a burst from his rifle, directly towards his head, only for the shot to meet a strong biotic barrier. “Looks like you will be my first victims in changing this galaxy. So be it. Overhaul will be your-” Hatsume had thrown a ball at him, then, which exploded and completely vaporized Overhaul. “Can’t even survive a Baby? Boo hoo!”

But before they could relax, the container rumbled, its tarp falling to the ground to reveal a huge Yahg, wearing a similar beaked helmet. Who simply pushed open the unlocked cage. “I’m Rappa. I’ve been wanting ta kill that fool too for a while, but I wanna have a big fight even more!”

The team spread out as the Yahg attacked, tackling Kirishima to the ground and starting to punch through his enhanced energy shields. Izuku opened fire, emptying mag after mag on the huge alien, while Mina aimed at the Yahg’s arms, and Hatsume aimed a launcher, ominously marked with a radioactive symbol. The Turian fired, and Rappa fell backwards.

“Surviving this Baby? Impossible!” exclaimed Hatsume as she reloaded. Izuku and Mina didn’t stop firing, using grenades, explosive shots and drones to slow down the Yahg. Kirishima sliced at Rappa with his omni-blade, and Izuku used his omnitool to punch, yelling “Smash!”, but to little effect. The Yahg had thrown Kirishima halfway across the room and punched Izuku in the gut, sending him flying a couple of meters, all air punched out of his lungs. But it had all been to give Hatsume time to reload and aim. And then she fired.

This time, Rappa was blown away and fell to the ground, knocked out completely. “Help me with these shock restraints, my battle buddies!” said Hatsume, producing a chain made out of carbon nanotubes with manacles for hands and feet, and an adjustable ring for the Yahg’s big neck. “With this thing he won’t move until a patrol picks him up! Though I think maybe I should add more eezo to the warheads, and…” She rambled on while Mina checked in on Izuku, gently helping him up.

“I’m alright, the armour took most of the blow” he said, not wanting to worry the girl. And the suit indeed had taken quite the hit, going through the overshields and biting into the metal. A side door then opened, and Iida’s team barged in. “We captured four of the pirates, and killed two, commander. They were a tricky bunch.” Iida informed as he lowered his rifle.

Specialist Tsuyu Asui rushed over to Kirishima, who was still struggling to get up, and immediately started to quietly tell him off for unnecessary risks in the fight. The redheaded soldier replied “Tsuyu! He punched me first!”

“So, it was just a trap? No hostages or anything?” asked Izuku as they left the derelict merchant ship.

“It seems they had plans to kidnap a human child with strong biotic powers, called Eri, but they were mostly useless and hadn't even tried yet.” Iida answered.

“Was there even a warrant for an “Overhaul” guy? The man had a huge ego and seemed to be the leader.”

Iida checked the intranet with his omnitool “Two hundred credits, Midoriya.”

Izuku yelled back at Hatsume, who had lagged behind to collect components and scraps from the ship “Hatsume, do you want to collect a very small bounty on that guy you vaporized?”

“Nah, my dude! You keep it, boss!”

Iida then added “Perhaps use it on a date with Miss Ashido, commander?”

“That uhh…sounds like a good plan! Let’s send a message when we leave, have some Alliance personnel take the prisoners in.”

Mina hugged him from behind suddenly, clanking their helmets together “And what date might it be with such a _generous_ bounty?”

“It shall be a surprise!” It would have to be after catching Himiko Toga and her Cerberus agents, but he had a few plans forming already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate Overhaul quite a bit, so vaporizing it was rather cathartic. As always, thanks for reading!


	4. We fly the ship together

The _Yuuei_ was almost ready to enter the last mass relay needed to get to Haestrom, and the crew had been readied. As far as Mina knew, the _Stain_ had landed on the planet and stayed there, from what Tooru had said on the intranet messages she had sent.

After the encounter with Overhaul and his gang on the way, it had been smooth flying, and, after some sleep, Mina had enjoyed the view on the bridge, sitting on a console that displayed the feed from the external cameras. Even at the speed they were going space was vast, beautiful and mysterious, with nebulas and star clusters visible so far away, and with planets of all sizes and types passing by.

The monitor had a very good image quality, almost as if it was a thin glass window to the infinite space outside, completely different to the viewports on Quarian ships, which, even if meant to bring in sunlight, were at least a foot thick and distorted the outside image.

So caught up was Mina that she didn’t hear some footsteps approaching and someone sitting down on the console next to hers “Uhh…hey!” Mina turned around and found Izuku, looking rather red and breathing in a controlled manner, like he had been about to enter a firefight.

“Oh, hey! I was just seeing space, it looks so nice like this…”

He turned to the monitor just as a breath-taking view came in; a star going supernova. Izuku’s mouth opened in awe and they both just stayed silent, watching the solar flares wildly erupting from the enormous, bright star. “That…I love this, you know?” Izuku said, both still caught on the spectacle.

“What do you mean with “this”?” asked Mina, looking at a wave of solar fire that was likely bigger than any planet in the galaxy.

“Well, two things…that nova is probably the most awesome thing I have ever seen. To see one that close and still be at a safe distance…I think it is priceless.”

He was silent for a moment, a quiet “wow” on his lips as they watched. But Mina was curious “What about the second thing?”

“I like having someone to see this with me” The honesty on his voice, that small touch of sadness…in a way, it resonated with Mina. Space was lonely. Beautiful and amazing, but it hammered home the concept of how insignificant every person was. Mina thought seriously of hugging Izuku then and there and damn whatever anyone would think.

But she didn’t, she just said “I think I feel the same.”

Even if she hadn't actively hugged Izuku, Mina could see that they both had moved as close to each other as the chairs allowed, apparently without thinking. Then Izuku’s face lit up “Oh, right! I wanted to ask you something!”

Before Mina could make some remark to tease Izuku, he added “Would you like to pilot the ship a bit?” Trusting his ship and the lives of his crew to a Quarian he had only known a short while? Either that was the most reckless idea Mina had ever heard, or the smoothest move to sweep her off her feet. Damn her love for ships, at this rate she’d be truly and hopelessly in love!

“Keelah selai! Yes!” She got up and followed Izuku a little distance to the cockpit, where a short officer was on the ship’s helm, a set of sticks more similar to those of a fighter craft than a big ship, like a Quarian liveship. Mina vaguely remembered Izuku calling the officer “Mineta” on one of the meals the crew had shared, but she hadn't spoken to him yet.

“Early for your shift, commander? We saved the last mass relay for you and…” the officer who was likely named Mineta looked back and saw the two of them, and a very smug smile formed on his face “You sly dog!”

Though very flustered, Izuku managed a mocking smile “I’d like the helm of my ship now, Lieutenant”

The short guy leapt off the chair and gave a mock salute “Aye-aye, cap’n!”

There was no blast door separating the cockpit from the rest of the bridge, and the officer chairs, though mostly empty, were behind them. “The chair is yours, Mina!” said Izuku, motioning to the pilot’s seat.

Sitting down and tentatively placing her feet on the pedals below, Mina took the sticks on her hands. “This is kinda similar to my dad’s ship…” she mentioned as she felt the controls under her gloves.

“With both sticks the ship can move tri-dimensionally, I haven’t used any complex moves yet but the Normandy-class is probably the most agile ship this size” Izuku said, moving over her shoulder to explain each stick and button, his hand brushing against Mina’s gloves a little as he moved. Was this very intimate or just Mina’s imagination? What she could see she wasn’t imagining was the passion Izuku had when talking about his ship, how confident he was about the subject.

And if she was being completely honest, she found it very attractive to see him so confident, the only other place where she had seen him like that had been in a fight, and that was likely due to tons of training.

“Okay, I think I’ve got the hang of it” said Mina after his little explanation.

“I’ll take off the autopilot, then.”

Mina interrupted him, as she had thought of a rather nice idea “Wait! I think you should help me a bit with the steering!” She would have fluttered her eyes seductively if she had been out of her helmet, but her voice would have to be enough this time “Put your hand on top of mine, just in case the control’s sensitivity is too high and I make a mistake, okay?” With a shy smile, Izuku did so, placing his right hand over her own. Through the gloves, Mina could feel how warm his hand was. What a brilliant idea!

“Okay, lets do this, Izu!” she said, deciding on the nickname on the spot.

“All crew, be ready for mass relay jump, on the other side we will get ready for a fight planetside!” said Izuku on a communicator, which broadcasted to the entire ship.

Mina didn’t actually need Izuku’s help with the controls, the moment autopilot was off she was switched on and at home with every little bit of the controls, and she made the _Yuuei_ hers, felt her turn from the robotic self-piloted vessel to a passionate, wild, powerful beast, that acknowledged her as its master. Flying was life, tearing through a mass relay at top speed was ecstasy, every turn of the stick and the feedback of the entire ship beneath her was happiness. Mina let a small giggle as they emerged on the other side of the relay, looking straight ahead at the anomalous star, Dholen, that had made Quarians interested in Haestrom in the first place.

“Okay crew, we are in the Dholen system, I want everyone ready for action!” Stealth tech aboard the ship would most likely keep them safe from Geth forces around Haestrom, but caution was always better than regret, had always said Mina’s dad. “Mina, would you please take us to your friends? I think they might be safer aboard”

“Of course! Maybe we can even fit the _Pinky Alien Queen_ on the hold!”

As she had already told Izuku tons about her quirky little ship, Izuku just smiled at her. Mina decided that she really loved that kind smile, and wanted to see it a lot more.

With the stealth drive active, the _Yuuei_ moved a bit slower, but it was still quite fast, and Mina navigated quickly to the Lagrange point where the _Pinky Alien Queen_ was floating. She took the ship around the planet’s orbit, making three quarters of a full turn before spotting her old vessel among some floating rubble. She hailed the ship with an encrypted message, a short text that said “Tooru!”

An instant later a video transmission patched in as answer “Mina! You guys made it!” Then Tooru’s hands went up to her helmet as she saw that Mina wasn’t alone, and in fact her companion was holding her hand on the ship’s controls.

“Uhhh…hello!” said Izuku, looking really embarrassed “We’re the Alliance ship SSV Yuuei, here to help. Your ship is quite small, we’ll move around a thing or two and it will fit right in!” Mina had spent a considerable amount of time on the hold, chatting up with Hatsume the mechanic as she turned the standard Alliance Mako into an actually useful vehicle; if they moved around some stuff, they could even fit the _Pinky Alien Queen_ there and a second Mako!

A few minutes later Mina had joined the grumpy Krogan Bakugou and her two roommates on the hold to welcome Tooru and Momo aboard. With a bit of help from Bakugou to pry open the slightly stuck blast door, they cranked open the _Pinky Alien Queen_ and met Mina’s friends. “Tooru! Momo!”

“Mina!” said both in unison and hugged her.

Tsuyu and Camie, Mina’s roommates immediately started talking to the newcomers, making them feel at home, while Bakugou just huffed and said that they looked weaker than he had imagined when he had heard that they had remained in Geth controlled space, on a ship with just basic life support, keeping eyes on a ship full of murderers. “I shall take that as praise!” had said Momo, graciously.

“I ain’t givin’ praise until I see you fight, Blue Face!” said Bakugou, before the ships comms announced that the rest of the ground team was to assemble there with them.

With everyone in one place, Izuku said “Tell us everything you know, Tooru, Momo. And if you want to join on the attack, every extra finger behind a trigger is welcome! Let’s plan, we’ll stop Cerberus here now!”

 

 

The galaxy had criminals and scum aplenty, and for an ambitious, enterprising young woman as Himiko Toga, they were all valuable contacts. The Shadow Broker, the Illusive Man, Aria T’Loak, even some less known, like a mysterious human biotic just known as All for One…Toga played fast and loose with her allegiance, taking jobs with everyone and swearing devotion to none.

She had a contract with Cerberus, which gave her the most obvious benefits; a prototype ship, fast as hell but nowhere near as stealthy as the Illusive Man had wanted for some secret squirrel project called Project Lazarus; a pilot, engineers and the bare essentials of a crew. From jobs with mercs she had acquired a ton of mechs, even an Atlas, which she had spray painted herself and called the “Gigantomachia”.

Most of her fighters had been from the crew of All for One’s top agent, a deceptively weak looking human with impressive biotics. He had called it a League of something or other before Toga had challenged him to a fight, winner keeping the gang, the day after she had joined. A stealth system rivalling that of Kasumi Goto, a high frequency dagger on each hand and her usual psychotic grin were more than enough to defeat Shigaraki, and earn All for One’s respect. So she had kept “Shiggy’s” band of misfits, and gone from job to job.

Toga didn’t do it for the thrill of it, or to drink the blood of her enemies (that was a good pastime, though)…she did every crime to retire comfortably to one of those decadent pleasure worlds. Maybe an Asari colony, like Illium. Or a penthouse in the Citadel, looking down on all the lawmen too poor to oppose her. Or a huge, slow ship going around the galaxy, servants and guards attending to their pirate queen’s every desire. It was a great dream, and anyone in her way could meet her daggers…which had a tendency to forgo handshakes in favour of getting lodged in their new acquaintance’s brain.

A dream that may be complete with someone by her side, though she was a bit picky; a human, preferably with green hair, a bit of freckles, either evil or diabetes inducingly good…the temptation of the laughable concept of redemption for her was almost as attractive to her as “bad boys” were to other women. She knew she’d never change, but the power such a situation would give her…It was a nice fantasy too, as the reality was that she had not met such a man in her time as a space pirate.

Love was far from her main concern now, though. The Illusive Man had given her a task, one that no other Cerberus cell knew about; contact the Geth to learn about how exactly they had made the ship “Sovereign”. The Illusive Man believed in the late Commander Shepard’s assertions on the Reapers, and Toga’s instinct told her the Geth had not made Sovereign.

“Contacting the Geth directly is a suicide mission and you now it, boss” said her underling Dabi, a Cerberus agent The Illusive Man had given over. Dabi had some connections to the brass in the Alliance, but frankly Toga didn’t give a damn about his history, just having his biotic singularities on her side in a fight.

“I’m not doing that. I’m going to plug in a control virus the Quarians made, see if it tickles them a bit. And as they react, Kurogiri and Compress hack the data on Sovereign.” A Yahg and a Salarian, both were extremely intelligent, and the best hackers Toga knew. And she had beat them to an inch of their lives when they had challenged her, too.

“And how will you plug the virus in? And the hackers?”

“You, Shiggy and the rest blow up their position near the old Quarian facility. And I’ll do the rest. Keep the mechs on the ship, we’ll need them later. And one other thing…I can smell danger, _unknown_ danger. Keep that ugly head on a swivel.”

“And if we see green haired guys, we bring ‘em alive, blablabla. I know the drill, boss, no need to repeat.”

“Don’t you kinkshame, ballsack face. Just do what I say.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, write another Toga? UNEXPECTED! She's a very flexible character to write, so we shall see just how it goes for her here. As always, thanks for reading!


	5. Geth, Space Pirates and the Yandere herself

“We got a reading from the surface, there’s a battle between the Geth and Cerberus!” said Iida as the _Yuuei_ descended on the surface, ready to drop the Mako and the _Pinky Alien Queen_ to deploy two teams against the enemy.

“Thirty seconds!” said Izuku, holding on to the Mako’s seat. Hatsume was on the driver’s seat, having already extensively modified the vehicle and adopting it as her Baby. Though a bit cramped, the Mako’s interior could hold Hatsume, Izuku, Bakugou, Mina and Tooru, the latter two weren’t particularly bulky, anyway.

The rest of the ground team would take Mina’s ship and land closer to the enemy position to flank them, while the Mako attacked from the front.

“Ten seconds!” Hatsume was already fiddling with the Mako’s thruster controls, ready to land them softly on the ground, on a path that would take them to the Geth position and to Himiko Toga’s ship. Unconsciously, Izuku took Mina’s hand; combat drops were always stressful, and Mina wasn’t a trained soldier. Also, because he wanted to hold her hand, mostly.

“Drop, drop, drop!” a hatch on the hold opened and the Mako was launched through, while the _Pinky Alien Queen_ sped off on its way. The _Yuuei_ arced back up to loiter around in the sky, ready to provide support and pick everyone up at a moment’s notice, and the Mako fell to the ground, altering its trajectory with thruster jets, and landing about as softly as a heavily armoured fighting vehicle could.

“Toot toot, pedal meet this boot!” said Hatsume as she slammed the accelerator, bringing the Mako to full speed, then surpassing that speed “The stock model Mako is a slow, dumb APC! This Baby is fast, quick and painted pink!” Hatsume had spray painted the same design as her face tattoos on the front of the vehicle, with some crosshair decals on the front windows, resembling Hatsume’s own eyes. Pretty eyes, in Izuku’s opinion, but if anyone had the best golden eyes in the galaxy, it was Mina. He couldn’t help but smile at the thought of the next time he would see her without her helmet.

“Can you get us there faster? I want to see that Asari Yao-Momo or whatever her name is kill some Geth!” said Bakugou, holding onto his seat almost comically.

“Sorry, angry dino! I could only increase this Baby’s speed to 300%, it will still take a bit to get there!” They had dropped 15 kilometres away from a Geth position, and 20 from Toga’s ship, at first hoping to sneak around the Geth and attack Cerberus, but as their enemies were fighting each other, they would meet them there.

The terrain was rough, coarse stone, bleached white by Haestrom’s sun, Dholen, which irradiated everything it’s light touched to dangerous degrees. They were safe in the Mako, but once outside, it would be wiser to fight in the shade. Which wouldn’t be much of a problem, as the landscape was dotted with Quarian buildings, less than four hundred years old but eroded by the sunlight till they looked like ancient ruins, and they would provide good cover.

“Got a Geth armature on my scope, gonna blast him, Baby!” said Hatsume, as she adjusted the autocannon on top of the Mako, heavily modified, of course, to focus on a huge Geth construct, at least six meters tall, and with a very intimidating light on its “face”. Before the armature could react, Hatsume had shot at it, hitting the target centre mass, and blasting it away.

“THAT was AWESOME! YES!” said Bakugou, looking at the carnage. “Can I use the gun?” he asked, with almost childlike glee, a funny sight that caused Mina and Tooru to burst out laughing.

“Treat my Baby well and blow some Geth up, pal!” said Hatsume as she gave away the autocannon’s controls. “Look, there’s some for you!” she said, pointing at a group of Geth with rocket launchers, led by a taller one with a thicker armour; a Geth prime.

“Take this, you synthetic flashlight heads!” yelled Bakugou as he opened fire. Meanwhile, Hatsume drove faster and faster, taking them from enemy encounter to the next until they were at a fortified Geth position. From the Mako’s scope, they could see a crew in all manner of armours and outfits climbing up the pyramid-like structure where the Geth had set up a server to control their Haestrom forces.

“Heads up, we’ve got a squad of Geth cruisers inbound” said Lt. Mineta on the comms “Less than ten minutes ETA!”

That was bad news. Izuku’s team had to take on the Geth, reach Toga, capture her and her men and get away, all in ten minutes. Not an easy task from any point of view. But they had to try.

“Hatsume, stay on the Mako and give us covering fire. Everyone else, we attack. Move cover to cover, the sunlight will cook us if we stay out on it too long. All ready? Let’s go!” The team rushed out from the Mako’s armoured hatch, sprinting to a broken wall. The pyramid was less than a hundred meters away, and most of the Geth were preoccupied with Toga’s group, so they managed to cover half the distance before a Geth colossus rushed them, terrifyingly powerful as it stood above them, ready to destroy them before Bakugou could even aim his grenade launcher, their best shot against the mighty enemy.

And then it suddenly had a massive hole in its midsection, gave a synthetic whimper, and fell dead. Hatsume was covering them, and the explosion had brought Bakugou to bliss, so he was now leading the charge, lobbing grenades at Geth drone soldiers left and right, bashing the ones that got close enough with his own body. The rest followed close, picking up any stragglers.

Twenty meters away from the base of the pyramid, which by this point Izuku could see was surrounded by platforms, bridges and ramps, they saw Toga’s crew about halfway up the structure, which Izuku calculated to be about a hundred meters tall at its peak. “Over there!” he said, pointing at the space pirates “Two biotics, a krogan, a human grenadier!” The grenadier seemed to be female, but looked much bulkier and taller than Toga was supposed to be.

“They’ve got an Atlas mech on the base of the structure, and…is that a Yahg on a computer?” said Tooru, looking at the enemy through the scope of her marksman rifle. Indeed there was a Yahg, a huge, brutish alien, dressed like a Turian bartender at the Citadel would dress, clicking carefully on a comically small computer, while an elegant human wearing a ballistic mask and a top hat worked on a similar console, clicking away furiously.

“We can’t let our back exposed…Bakugou, you go and engage the mech.” Izuku clicked his long range team comms “Iida, the enemy are split in two, take your squad and attack their rearguard”

“Copy that, the _Pinky Alien Queen_ is thirty seconds out!”

Bakugou gave them a grunt before charging the Geth on the base of the pyramid and heading for the Atlas mech, his battlemaster biotics charging up around him. It was a fearful sight to behold, perhaps not as much as a grown adult battlemaster, but still awe inspiring.

Izuku, Mina and Tooru kept moving towards a side ramp, tearing through waves of Geth drone soldiers, a couple of Geth hunters, armed with shotguns and deadly up close, and a Geth Prime, which Mina distracted so Izuku could jump on it from behind, delivering a massive punch with his omni-tool, yelling “Smash!”.

That gave them a moment’s repose, a little breather so they could keep going with some energy. About a minute later, Izuku checked on the girls, who gave him a thumbs up, ready to go.

Up they went, unchallenged until a sentry turret opened fire at them, from a blind spot caused by a corner in the ramp, the gunfire almost catching Mina. But Izuku had reacted fast, pushing her out of the way and into cover, falling on top of her.

“Uhhh…hey!” he said, realizing how embarrassing the situation was, their bodies all over each other’s, only separated by armour and clothes. If they had not been wearing helmets, Izuku was sure their faces would have touched as well…maybe even kissed by accident.

“Thanks! We missed that damn gun!” said Mina, not pushing him away or anything.

“I…I’m glad you’re safe!” Izuku said, his hand just reaching up for her helmet and patting it a bit. He would have much preferred to touch her cheek, if truth be told, but the helmet was alright.

“Are you gonna shield me with your body for more time? Cause Tooru seems quite busy with the turret…”

“Ah, yes! Sorry!” He got up, thankful that his N7 helmet covered the giant blush he called a face, and helped Mina up. “We should try and-“

The turret exploded, Tooru’s sniper rifle having hit a weak spot. The Quarian shrugged and said “Someone had to do that”.

The turret was the final bit of resistance before they saw a squad of Geth with rocket launchers, their backs turned on the team, aiming down at the space pirates. Opening with an explosive shot from Izuku’s rifle, they made short work of the Geth troopers, turning them into metallic rubble quickly. And then they were face to face with Toga’s crew.

There was little information on them, besides aliases and vague descriptions. Izuku inferred that the green skinned Krogan was the idealist Spinner, a well known opposer of the Salarians and the Genophage they had enacted on the Krogan homeworld of Tuchanka, making most of the population infertile and further worsening Krogan lives, already violent and joyless. Spinner had joined Saren a few months back, but had left disillusioned with not finding any help against the Genophage, and had sadly fallen in with space criminal scum. Even if he was an enemy and a radical, Izuku couldn’t help but think that Spinner deserved better than to be with these people.

Beside the green alien dinosaur was a tall, lanky man, dressed like a partygoer from one of those Bekenstein mansions. Bekenstein, a human colony near the Citadel, was both a marvel of terraforming, and a decadent place of money laundering and white-collar crime. The man would have been right at home there, much more so than any other Alliance world with military presence. Because that man was Touya Todoroki.

Now going by the alias of Dabi, Touya had deserted the academy at Arcturus Station, stowed away to Pluto, got lost among the millions of soldiers and contractors who worked in Sol System’s biggest fortress, and had ran away on a stolen ship through the Charon mass relay. A strong biotic, but less powerful than his brother, Shouto, Touya had started his life as a deserter by sending a singularity through a shop in the Citadel, attacking two C-Sec officers, and stealing a woman’s purse. How that had led him to Cerberus, it wasn’t known, but the dark yellow logo was proudly displayed on his coat as he charged at them.

Mina took on Dabi, moving from cover to cover to avoid the singularities he launched and the incineration tech he used with his omnitool, trying to goad him into walking into a patch of sunlight. His biotic barriers would not withstand both acid shots and Haestrom’s wicked sun! Tooru fired at Dabi to distract him and keep him from channeling more power to his attacks, needing to keep up his defences.

Meanwhile, Izuku engaged Spinner, shooting carefully at the Krogan’s head and midsection, trying to deal enough damage to both the main and redundant organs before their natural regeneration repaired them. Krogans were extremely hard to kill, and that fact dawned on Izuku even more as Spinner charged at him, a big machete-like weapon on his hands.

Reloading his thermal clip, Izuku had just a few more seconds of shooting before Spinner was upon him, ready to make mincemeat of him. But he had a plan.

The Krogan’s charge made his legs less steady than standing still, and he would lunge with the blade, likely attacking the chest area. With all the strength of a Krogan’s two arms, and all the weight behind the blade, it would definitely cut deep, maybe even chop him in two. The back of a Krogan’s knees was much tougher than a human’s entire leg, so it would take a lot to sweep the legs, even if he got a chance…

Spinner was in distance. Izuku threw his rifle directly at Spinner’s face, before sliding low, avoiding the big slash Spinner threw with his sword. On a closer look, it looked like a blacksmith had tried to forge a katana with various other blades, leaving it thick, jagged and vicious. If Izuku got chopped with it, it would not be a quick death.

Avoiding the sword was only the first move. With the slight advantage to mobility that the N7 armour gave him, Izuku kicked at Spinner’s left leg, behind the knee. It was like kicking a concrete wall, though the wall would probably have given more ground; Spinner’s leg was still intact, though the knee buckled and it made him stumble.

One knee was not enough, so Izuku moved to the next, changing his omnitool from the usual fist to a blade and slicing at the tendons, finally bringing Spinner to his knees. In position behind the downed Spinner, Izuku could move before the Krogan could turn around and attack with the sword, but he also couldn’t get a shot at his head, probably the only way to incapacitate Spinner, at least momentarily.

With his Carnifex handgun in hand, Izuku stepped out from Spinner’s blindspot and fired at the Krogan’s head, shooting the entire magazine at point blank range just as Spinner’s sword slashed at him, losing momentum when Spinner’s control over his body reduced, but still managing to get the blade stuck in his leg armour.

A Carnifex shot to the head was not enough to kill a Krogan, no matter what the adverts may say. Maybe a lucky shot, which passed right through the eyes and somehow kept its momentum through the thick layers of the skull. An entire magazine was a surer way of killing them, but it had to be by shooting them through the face, not the side of the head, which had thicker skin and bone underneath.

But for now, it was enough, and Spinner fell unconscious to the ground.

 

 

Mina had managed to move up close enough to tear apart Dabi’s biotic barriers with her shotgun, and the scoundrel was trying to flee, dodging Tooru’s shots as well as he ran. Izuku moved in to help, but a wave of Geth attacked, deciding that their enemies fighting gave them a tactical edge.

Mina kept up with Dabi as he ran, she was in much better physical condition than the scrawny space pirate, afterall. When she caught up with him she punched him in the face and took him to the ground, stomping on his omnitool before he could even begin to try and incinerate her.

“Stay down you ugly Cerberus butthole face!” she yelled, kicking him in the nuts, which brought a grimace of pain to his face, a face covered in tattoos and kinda ugly in Mina’s opinion. Mina was about to punch him again in the face when she suddenly felt her stomach turning, and a blue glow enveloped her; Dabi had caught her and sent her floating with biotics!

The Cerberus agent looked at her, then at his smashed omnitool, perhaps breating himself for not carrying a gun, and decided to flee, and Mina could do nothing to stop him. But Tooru could, and she put a round through Dabi’s arm, slowing him down, but not stopping him long enough, and the Geth moved in before they could catch him.

The synthetics fell back slowly, letting Mina, Izuku and Tooru restrain Spinner, so that Iida and the rest could haul him back to the ship. With that done, Mina and the others pressed on, moving against the Geth and the two other space pirates they hadn't fought, who were covering a now-useless Dabi. It looked like they were stalling for time, rather than trying to advance further…

One of them was a huge human woman, covered head to toe in heavy armour, fighting with a grenade launcher and a heavy battle rifle. Mina vaguely remembered Izuku telling them that the woman was called Magne during the mission briefing, but she remembered few details.

The other was an even scrawnier human, his entire body glowing with biotics. And even from a distance Mina could see that he had extremely dry skin and a maniac’s face. This one was not with Cerberus, and Mina didn’t have a clue who he could be. She really should have paid more attention to the briefing instead of getting lost in Izuku’s eyes, but it was easy to ogle when your entire face was covered, and no one could see what you were staring at.

As the team pushed onwards, Mina saw Camie and Iida picking up the big green Krogan Izuku had taken down, holding him up between them with a combination of biotics and pure strength, and they carried him away.

The Geth fell back and Mina’s team pursued them, while the rest of the ground team moved to engage the remainders of Toga’s crew, apparently the guys in computers had already been taken care of.

They moved to the top of the pyramid now, to secure the entire structure and let the _Yuuei_ land close to pick them up, but on the peak they found four Geth Primes, huge and mighty, armed with rockets and machine guns, their faces having three lights instead of one. A vision from Mina’s nightmares, ever since she had studied the Geth wars in her childhood. Those same nightmares that brought her crying to her mom and dad, and how heartbroken dad was when he couldn’t even wipe his daughter’s tears for fear of possibly spreading human germs on the liveship.

Well, nothing better than facing her childhood dreams while having a cute guy beside her!

A cute guy that knew better than to face the Primes head on “Mineta, can you give us some fire on the top of the pyramid? Danger close, so be careful, Mineta.”

The _Yuuei’s_ front railguns fired from somewhere in the sky above them, right at the enormous Geth platforms, reducing them to molten slag, and almost blowing up the server behind them.

“All clear” announced Izuku after scanning the area.

Mina felt uneasy. Something was off…they hadn't seen this Toga girl at all.

A device connected to the Geth server disconnected, and in an instant Mina couldn’t see it. Had that been there? Were her eyes tired? Maybe they were those “eye floater” things her dad had told her about?

“There’s a Cerberus dropship on the way, Midoriya” said Iida on the radio. They were probably there to pickup Dabi and the others before the Geth could overwhelm them. It didn’t matter, the teams had stopped whatever they had been trying to do in this pyramid. And they could move quickly to blast their ship in a few minutes, no worry!

Izuku looked back to aim at the dropship and Mina covered his back while Tooru moved up to take position by the Geth server, ready to cover their flank with sniper fire. And then her best friend was zapped with an omnitool, the electricity coming from thin air.

A second later, before Tooru’s unconscious body had even hit the floor, Mina felt a pair of legs entangle over her shoulders, grappling her to the ground with a thud. The crash took the air out of Mina’s lungs, and her shotgun was kicked away. Izuku was moving over to help her against the invisible assailant, but he was stopped by a blade at his throat as a young woman de-cloaked between them. Besides the knife at Izuku’s throat, the woman had a heavy pistol aimed at Mina’s head.

“I would slow down a bit if I were you, Mr. Alliance Man. Now be a dear and take off that helmet…the Geth had a wee bit of terraforming around this server and we can breathe normally. As you could probably infer from seeing my cute face in all it’s glory!” This had to be Himiko Toga, the woman they had come to hunt.

Mina imagined Toga was about her age, from the youthful look on her face. She wore a set of thin armour that was fitted to her figure, the plates covered in passive camouflage technology that already made her hard to spot. With an infiltrator module, it made sense that she’d turn invisible to the naked eye.

The knife on her hand seemed to be a high frequency blade, with vibrated to cut through materials easier than regular blades, the pistol had a big N7 logo on it, just like Izuku’s armour…but what felt most threatening to Mina was Toga’s smile. Normal humans didn’t have teeth like that, or smiled like they were in love when facing their opponents!

“Now now, marine, or the Quarian with weird legs might get some extra oxygen in her brain. At this distance, her shield won’t stop my gat.” Toga’s voice was…seductive? It made Mina angry, it made her feel like her enemy wasn’t taking her seriously!

Izuku complied and dropped his helmet to the floor. Toga gasped and her face blushed and for an instant she looked seriously shook. Mina had a second to go for Toga’s gun, but instead wasted that second thinking about how totally not cool it was that Toga was reacting like that when seeing Izuku’s face.

“You…are just my type! I think I just fell in love, gimme a sec…” she removed her knife from Izuku’s throat and clicked on her earpiece, yelling at some poor soul on the other side of the line “I FOUND THE ONE, GANG!” Then Toga turned around and said “Excuse me, I got a bit excited…how about you and I discuss all this misunderstanding like adults, over a drink, perhaps? I know this little bar in Illium that has just the perfect romantic atmosphere…I’ve never been there with such a handsome companion though, maybe we’d even get a discount! Actually, I don’t think I have gone to any nice place like that ever…I have always gone on business, leaving all…bloody!”

Laughing at such cruel words…Toga made Mina’s skin crawl. “I uhh…I have a girlfriend, sorry!” said Izuku, blushing a bit while looking at Mina, trying to tell her something with his eyes.

But she had only heard “girlfriend”, and it had made her feel bad! “Izuku what?!?!” said Mina, pretty much panicking, the concept of this boy keeping a secret girlfriend while they had been sharing all those nice moments was not a thing that made her happy. It almost made her forget having a gun to her head.

“Oooh…Izuku. What a sexy name. Izuku. Iiiiizuku. Izuuuuuku. Izukuuuuuu.” said Toga, moving closer to Izuku and blowing a kiss at him “How about…Izu-Izu? Yeah, I like that.” Then her voice turned cold “Who’s this _girlfriend_?” The total disdain on the word…now she was even more dangerous than ever.

“I’ll never tell you! Just…go to hell, we’ll catch you!”

Toga laughed, insanely “You will try, but with as noble a motive as I have, you may end up letting me go!”

She was stalling for time! Mina just had to reach a weapon…

“What motivation could you possibly have that would excuse murdering people for Cerberus?” yelled Izuku, his face full of anger, confusion and concern, bringing up his pistol to aim at Toga’s face.

“I am willing to do anything for those I love and…I need the money for my kids! The two cutest little bundles of joy…I have few marketable skills, you know?” Her voice sounded sincere, and it made Izuku hesitate, lower his Carnifex just a bit.

“You have children?” Poor Izuku seemed to be doubting he could shoot a mother and leave a pair of babies orphaned…he was believing Toga, his kind heart getting in the way.

“I do…you are the father, my beloved Izu-Izu!”

The pure fear in Izuku’s eyes took all of Toga’s attention, so Mina managed to inch a bit closer to her shotgun. Just a couple feet more…

The yellow and white Cerberus shuttle rose behind Izuku, its door opening to reveal a human in some sort of jumpsuit holding a rope ladder. Mina managed to get closer to her shotgun, just a bit more…Then Toga activated her infiltration device, and Mina saw Izuku’s head turn a bit and his eyes go wide, his lips part a bit…

“I’m a space pirate, stealing a kiss from you is the least I could do!” she said, laughing, and jumped to the ladder. That was not cool at all with Mina. In a second, she had her shotgun in hand and she had the approximate place Toga was, just a bit out from the distance where her acid shot would destroy her. And she pulled the trigger. One time, then again, and again, until she ran out of ammo. The last shot was rewarded by a thin spray of blood, so she knew that at least the next time, Toga would be limping a bit.

Mina rushed to Izuku, finding him in shock. His eyes were unfocused, and his breathing was shallow “I don’t wanna have children with a pirate queen, I…she kissed me, what the hell!”

“That was extremely creepy, Izuku! Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine but…Tooru!” Izuku looked at Tooru, who was getting up, holding her helmet with both hands.

“I’m gonna need a drink, you’ve got emergency induction ports on the ship?”

Mina cleared it up “Humans call them “straws”!”

Izuku smiled at that “Sure, we’ve got some!”

“We’ll land the _Yuuei_ in one minute, just outside the pyramid! Get your ass down there commander, the Geth ships are almost here!”

“We should go! And…Mina, about that girlfriend thing I said with Toga, it was not true.”

It was quite a relief, maybe that was why she chose to hug him. Maybe it was just that she realized how close they had been to getting killed. It didn’t matter. She liked Izuku, she really did, and she promised to herself that she would not let a psychotic space pirate queen harm him in any way.

 

 

“We’ve got Geth cruisers inbound, Toga! We have to go!” yelled Shigaraki. Though insane and fearless, not even the dry edgelord particularly relished getting blasted to bits.

“I know, I know” said Toga as she released the last of the ship’s brakes, launching to the air and zooming quickly through the atmosphere, rising slowly to get detected slower by the Geth ships. From the hack she had just managed, she had a much greater understanding of the Geth now; AI’s, moving on a network, to trooper platforms or turrets or mechs. Even big ships!

“That Alliance ship is fast, and it bounces all around radar!” said Twice, perhaps the crewman who liked Toga the most. It wasn’t mutual, she thought he was creepy. But Twice was talented as a mechanic, fighter and janitor, it was almost like he had the energy of many Twices at once, so Toga kept him around. With very clear ideas that they would _never_ get together.

“It’s a Normandy class, of course it’s got stealth!” said Dabi, wincing, as speaking opened up the cuts on his face from getting punched. Toga had seen it from afar, that Quarian with weird legs could definitely brawl, and new bruises on Dabi’s smug face were always welcome.

“The Illusive Man made two ships for Project Lazarus, this one and the good one, but this one’s the fast one! Now buckle up, you bunch of degenerates, we’ve gotta get to the relay, then we scamper off, then all of you are going to help me sift through the entire Alliance database if need be! My beloved apparently has a girlfriend, and I will not tolerate such disrespect!”

“Did you even get a name, Toga?” asked Shigaraki. All for One’s agent had expressed the least concern when learning that Spinner, Kurogiri and Compress had been captured, saying it didn’t matter if they accomplished the mission. That made Toga a bit angry. Sure, they were fools, but they were HER fools.

“Izuku!” she said, blushing in a lovesick manner.

Dabi spit to the ground “The one that snatched the Academy medal from my brother’s hands?”

“Dabi, I may be a bloodthirsty, obsessive and messed up woman, but even I haven’t had enough time to stalk my beloved when we are getting pursued!” They passed the upper atmosphere, just out of range of the weapons of the lead Geth cruiser, and Toga knew they were much faster than those damn synths.

From the side, undetected, came up the Alliance ship, shooting its railguns at them, just narrowly missing. “That was too close, that pilot is good…Crew! Do you think that pilot is my beloved Izu-Izu?”

A unanimous “No” greatly disappointed Toga. Still, would she just have the time of her life, dogfighting on ships against a good pilot!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chance for an arrest on the ground gone for now, the Yuuei starts the chase! As always, thanks for reading!


	6. Chase Oddity

“That Blue Force tracker on the _Yuuei_ shows it extremely close to target, Endeavor” said the Alliance intelligence officer, codenamed Hawks. Of course, not even Admiral Todoroki was allowed to know his full name, though he was his superior officer. Hawks was quite alright going by just a codename, it made him feel slick and cool.

The admiral, known for his drive, hence the “Endeavor” moniker, smiled, just as if he had stepped on a Turian’s neck “I’m guessing your contact with Touya is online, isn’t it, Hawks?”

Perhaps the only instance of Hawks mixing business and pleasure, his assignment with Touya Todoroki. Defector, rebel, lover… “He goes by Dabi these days. And he still hates you.”

“I’m not after the love of that failure, even if I did bring him into this world. In a way, though, he is still doing my will, allying with Cerberus, so I want him to succeed. Send him the intercept code, I’m sure Midoriya is a good enough pilot to get close enough to tag them with a tracker.”

“The intercept code will disable the tracker, right? Hold on, I get helping your son stay out of prison and helping Cerberus with deniability, but…”

“But this will cause Midoriya to fail his mission. An easy mission, considering the resources I allocated to him. But I think you and I both can see how he was doomed from the start.” It was true, Hawks had been there all the way, as Endeavor’s hidden right hand, overseeing the entire operation since before the ship _Stain_ had even been sighted.

“Is this about your son Shouto? Your beef with Yagi? With Anderson and Hackett still trusting “All Might” more than you, who are still serving?” Hawks knew the best way to get the truth from Enji Todoroki was to get it in the form of angry shouting, but for a man who had survived an encounter with a thresher maw, no man could be frightening enough. Endeavor’s biotics may be strong enough to tear a man in two, but that great serpent in Tuchanka would never leave Hawks’ nightmares.

“THIS IS ABOUT EVERYTHING! My useless son losing against some Pluto kid, the brass all but twisting my arm into giving the fucking kid a brand-new Normandy-class frigate! The fact that they gave the most advanced ship we have is made with Turian tech revolts me, and just thinking that we gave it to _another_ xeno-lover is a fucking disgrace! Look at my face, Hawks!” The admiral pointed wildly at his scarred face, burnt away in the First Contact War, in the Battle of Shanxi, almost 27 years earlier.

“You know what those fucking aliens did to me?”

“You may have mentioned once or twice, I forgot” being sassy was Hawks’ natural state, good thing he didn’t formally belong to the chain of command.

“They shot my helmet with an incendiary grenade! Those shitty _bonefaces._ I was still on the infirmary bed when humanity surrendered! They killed my men, they did this to me, they destroyed humanity’s pride! And Yagi…that bastard was one of the first to sign peace. Fucker, he just loved the damn xenos. “Fantastic opportunities for the betterment of humanity”? Kiss my thick ass, All Might!”

With the smuggest smirk Hawks could summon, he said “Wow, this really has you upset. Should I call a Navy physician and advise them for kidney stones?”

“Don’t start with me, kid. You know full well I could…”

“Rip me apart with your biotics. Yeah, I have heard that before. But you won’t. For two reasons; nobody else will listen to your shit, and I make your life a lot easier, “Endy”. So, keep ranting away.”

Endeavor pointed at him and smiled “That is correct. And you’ve got guts, I like that too. Anyway…I trained and bettered myself. I was no longer a lieutenant, fresh off the Academy. No, I was everywhere, had the best marksmanship, even with a prosthetic eye, had the best physical results. I even submitted myself to element zero, to develop biotic powers!”

“And then you made a batch of children to force to do the same thing again, because Yagi was still ahead of you.”

“Yes. I have no regrets, not even for pushing Touya to defect. He still helps, in a way. The other two…they are useless, not my concern. Shouto…I can still create a leader for humanity with him. A single man to bring Earth to the forefront, to make the aliens yield.”

“From what Dabi tells me, Cerberus thinks Shepard could have been turned to something like that.”

“Shepard is DEAD! And good riddance. Xenos aboard an Alliance ship? A disgrace. Humanity can do it alone. If I was ten years younger, the Spectre position could have been mine. And I would have smashed Saren Arterius within the month, with a patriotic human crew. For Earth, goddamnit!”

“I’d say if you had been twenty years younger, but I see your point. And I agree, humanity is bowing too much to the Citadel.”

“Exactly, Hawks. So not only did Yagi beat me into creating a second generation of Todorokis, he goes ahead and picks a random kid, recommends him to the Academy, and the little shit _thrives._ Shouto told me about this Midoriya kid a few times, and from all I heard, his first instinct is to _shake hands_ with aliens first, not shoot them. But now…now I have him right where I want him.”

Hawks had never seen such malice in Endeavor’s eyes, now it was starting to make him uneasy “What…what exactly are you planning?”

“Send the code to my son, Hawks. I want that Cerberus ship to evade capture. And start compiling the evidence on the mission. Interviews with all the people Izuku Midoriya interacted with the last week, security cam footage, purchases made with military funds.”

“Guess I’m calling the admirals for a trial, too?”

Endeavor smiled as hard as if he had seen a Batarian exploding in gore “Exactly. I have you now, Izuku Midoriya. You and Yagi will not last long.”

  

 

 “Dabi, stop texting on that omni-tool and help us with the deflector shields!” yelled Shigaraki, as he fired the _Stain_ ’s turrets, to little effect, trying to keep the enemy ship away.

“Fuck off! I’m getting intel on that ship!”

“What you’re getting is _spaced_ if they manage to hit us!” said Toga from the pilot’s seat. Behind her they could bicker and argue as much as they wanted, but this was not the time to risk anything. The enemy ship had already shot twice at them, they had a good gunner, and, judging by how they kept manoeuvring to good positions behind them, a hell of a pilot too.

“We’re one relay away of my plan, gents, so keep us in one piece” she said, her voice full of authority. They had only managed to escape beyond the Dholen relay at good speed before the enemy had appeared again, managing to shoot them from quite a distance, lowering their shield capacity by 30%.

Of course, Toga had a plan. One that most people in the galaxy would call insane. She had been called worse things, and it was a win-win situation, whatever happened.

Toga was about to tell her crew, expecting their terrified screams, when the whole ship shook, sending sparks flying around the cockpit. They had been shot again. “Dabi, if that got through the shields, I will hang your body in the crew shower and bathe with your blood!” She hadn't bathed in blood before, but it sounded like such a luxurious experience, even better than drinking blood. Would she need special medicines to avoid health risks if she bathed with Dabi’s blood?

“I powered the shields right where they were going to hit us, we still have 60% left.” That wasn’t good. The deflector shields were essential in protecting against meteorites and other debris, and most importantly, against solar radiation. Without the shields, the ship was about as vulnerable as a 20th century space rocket. And she was planning quite the trip.

“We’re about halfway to the relay. The straight line is the fastest route, yes, but Izu-Izu is moving his ship well enough that they will stay on our tail when we appear on the other side, and they might even take down our shields before we get to the third relay. A jump without shields might fuck the ship up! So, we’re taking a roundabout!”

Toga turned the ship to the left, the momentum crushing her against the soft leather of her chair.

“Toga, at the speed we are going, that trajectory…” Shigaraki sounded even more afraid than when he had been beaten within an inch of his life in his duel against Toga.

“The star map is correct, you skinny runt. We’re going through that…”

 

 

“They are going through that supernova?!?!” yelled Mineta, almost shattering Izuku’s eardrums with his shrill voice.

“They are, it will slow them down enough for us to tag them with the tracker! With that we can catch them wherever they end up!” Izuku couldn’t fail the mission, too much was at stake. If Toga escaped, she would go on to commit further atrocities, and keep destroying the vital relationship of humans and other species!

While Cerberus, on average, supported more the betterment of humanity at any cost, rather than actively attacking aliens, several of their cells had caused so much harm, such pain, and Izuku knew that Toga’s was one of these. She had to be stopped, admiral Endeavor had understood that! It had to be the reason why Endeavor had given away the _Yueei_ so freely, the threat was more important than trying to help his son move upward in the Navy.

Maybe Izuku was finally getting Endeavor’s approval? Was that why the admiral had been less standoffish? Izuku had no idea what went inside the man’s mind, but capturing Toga would be a feat that even Endeavor wouldn’t scoff at, and it might help Izuku finally earn his respect.

In the _Yuuei_ ’s controls were Mineta on shields and engineering, Iida on navigation, Izuku himself on the guns and at the helm was Mina. Izuku had seen first-hand how naturally she piloted the ship when they had made the last jump, and now, as Mina manoeuvred them to positions where Izuku could land potshots on the _Stain_ , Izuku knew that there was no better pilot aboard the _Yuuei._

“Izuku, you sure you can hit them? The tracker’s missile range is less than ten kilometres!” said Iida, wiping the sweat off his brow with the gloves of his white and blue armour. There had been no time to change from combat gear, just a couple seconds to throw their helmets to the ground and sit down, and the stress wore down Iida’s regular politeness.

“I think I can hit them from fifteen!”

“Midoriya! That supernova…you cant be serious!” Mineta was losing his cool at a rate similar to how Mina was further getting in “the zone”, completely caught up with piloting. Mina was doing minute shifts of the sticks, tapping pedals and buttons quickly, all that to get Izuku in range to use the autocannons. She didn’t talk, but it seemed she didn’t need to; Izuku felt like her flying was talking for her, connected to him and the weapons in perfect synchronisation.

“It’s that nova we were admiring earlier, isn’t it, Izuku?” asked Mina, her voice…distant, like she could only spare a tiny fraction of a second to concentrate on speaking.

“It is…I don’t know if we’ll find it beautiful if we get that close, though”

“With this bird…I can make it. With this ship, I could do anything. I could fly fast enough to save dad. I can fly fast enough. I can, I can.”

Mina’s voice had grown anxious, pained…but she was flying even better. “Mina? What is going on?”

“I can get to that ship in time. I can get there in time, no matter the obstacles. I can get what we need.” Her dad? Getting what “we need”? Mina was lost in a memory?

“Mina, are you alright?”

Her voice turned icy cold, and she replied “Never better. I have everything I need. I can get there in time. Ground control to Major Tom.” Then she started humming an old Earth song, revived by the spacers that had gone through the Arcturus relay with humanity’s adventurer spirit in their hearts.

Izuku knew the lyrics, having grown with tales of such spacers. The song was more than a hundred years old…but it matched the 22nd century as well as it had the 20th. Under his breath, he started singing along Mina’s melody, as they shot through, thousands of miles per second, the supernova growing massive light year by light year.

“This is ground control to Major Tom…”

Toga’s ship darted inside the supernova’s dangerous gravitational field, aiming at the outer flares of solar fire.

“You’ve really made the grade” replied Mina, her voice melodiously singing back.

The _Yuuei_ did not slow down as they crossed every threshold of safe approach, alarms blaring as the ship advised the crew to hold on for dear life. Waves of gravitational anomalies wracked the ship like turbulence and wind resistance would have on a surface shuttle. The shields started receiving damage, both from debris, caught in the gravitational field but not yet brought onto the star, and the gravity itself. If the _Yuuei_ lingered, it would be crushed and attracted straight into the star.

“And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear” said Izuku, his voice barely a whisper. He felt his heart hammering against the cloth of his armour’s undersuit. He was sweating bullets, and was feeling the fear only knowing his own human insignificance when met with a celestial power, a dying god, could bring.

“Now it’s time to leave the capsule, if you dare” said Mina, her voice a little steadier, as she flew the ship past the last shreds of “safe” space around the supernova. In front of them, the _Stain_ danced around two massive solar flares like a ballet dancer pirouetting elegantly. Izuku had to admit Toga had a helluva pilot flying her ship.

Behind him, Izuku heard Mineta crying about not wanting to die a virgin, then dutifully reporting that shields were steady at 85%.

“This is Major Tom to ground control, I’m stepping through the door…” said Izuku as Mina brought them straight to the hellfire, weaving into gigantic flames that lit the cockpit even through the shields, the photosensitive protection panels and even the walls. A second later the ship’s hull had adjusted to the glow, letting them see again. Blinking hard a few times, Izuku saw the _Stain_ do a barrel roll to avoid a rogue asteroid, about the size of one of the Citadel’s arms, and rotating towards the nova’s heart. And in their path now, too.

Iida went against Alliance protocol then, using the ship wide comm system to tell Utsushimi that he loved her, and that he regretted they wouldn’t live to marry. But Izuku didn’t focus on that.

“And I’m floating in the most peculiar way” said Mina, slamming the brakes to perform a turn at breakneck speed, avoiding the asteroid and flying in parallel with it. Cresting the ridge of the asteroid’s spine, the _Yuuei_ edged closer and closer to the end of the asteroid when two fragments of the asteroid split off, directly in their path.

“And the stars look very different today” sang Izuku as he blasted the fragments and saw space beyond the atomized debris. Avoiding the asteroid had stolen valuable seconds from the _Stain,_ and now they were extremely close. 100 kilometres away, less by the second.

Toga’s ship turned to avoid a rogue wave of solar fire, to the side. 65 kilometres away, Izuku armed the railguns with the tracker rounds. “For here am I sitting in a tin can” said Mina as she positioned the _Yuuei_ to avoid the same flare. Izuku’s finger hovered over the trigger…

“Far above the world” sang Izuku as the crosshair on his screen marked the distance; 25 kilometres.

“Planet Earth is blue” sang Mina, as Izuku fired the trackers, tracing them in his console and watching them latch on the _Stain._ With the confirmation “ping” of the trackers being in place, Mina turned the ship away from the supernova, barely evading a beam of fire.

The tracker appeared as online on Izuku’s screen for a brief instant. Then a message showed up; “the tracker has been disabled remotely”. It was extremely fitting, the next words of the song.

Izuku saw Toga’s ship come out the other side of the supernova, en route to the mass relay; the last evasive manoeuvre had cost the _Yuuei_ too much time, and they watched their target slip through their fingers. They had lost the _Stain._ “And there’s nothing I can do” said Izuku, bitterly. The song fit too well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song of course is Space Oddity, by David Bowie. What will the good guys do now? We'll learn soon.
> 
> Thanks a lot for reading!


	7. Among stars, between hearts

Hawks saw admiral Enji Todoroki, his rage an act, for once “What do you mean they got away? Do you not have trackers aboard that ship?”

“Sir, the tracker was hooked successfully, I made certain of that myself. But someone aboard the _Stain_ disabled it remotely!” Midoriya’s hologram stood, proud but defeated, still wearing battle armour.

“That sounds like excuses, Midoriya! Alliance trackers are among the most encrypted of human technologies, you expect me to believe that Cerberus could simply hack one without a code?”

“Sir, that…”

 “Midoriya, this is a mission failure. An investigation will take place to verify your claims, as well as several more concerns that the fleet has on your…performance. Get back to the Citadel ASAP, you will stand trial before the admirals, explain everything. The mission was simple, Midoriya; to catch that Toga criminal, kill her if necessary. You let her go, and that makes me suspicious about the whole affair. Consider your commission as an officer suspended, as of this moment”

“Sir, I-”

“DISMISSED, MIDORIYA! GET TO THE CITADEL NOW!”

The hologram cut off, and Endeavor let a maniacal laugh “I have him! Has Yagi confirmed attendance for the trial?”

“He has. He doesn’t know who is standing as the accused, though.”

“Well done. How about my son?”

“Shouto? He’ll be there, don’t worry.”

“The failures?”

“That’s not a nice way to call Natsuo and Fuyumi, boss.”

“I do not care for their feelings, but I would like them to see me rise.”

“They told me to sod off.”

“It matters little. As long as All Might sees me destroy his son, it works.”

“You do know that he isn’t Midoriya’s actual father, right?”

 

 

“I really hate that man” said Izuku as he stepped out of the comm room he had just used to contact Endeavor.

Mina was the first to greet him “What happened? Can they help? Are we still going to catch Toga?”

“I…no. We failed the mission, and they want me to explain myself in front of the admiralty. I’m sure Endeavor will find a way to spin this all wrong!”

Still halfway in a bad memory, Mina had only one idea “You know what? Let’s spacewalk a bit. Talk. Rant. All that.”

Izuku snapped his helmet back on and checked the magnetic seals on his armour boots “I’m ready, let’s go to the hatch.” The _Yuuei_ had a two-stage airlock that they could use to dock or go outside for repairs, much better tech than Mina was used to seeing in the Migrant Fleet, their airlocks tended to be quite ramshackle in nature.

The ship comms blared to life “Commander, I know what’ll cheer you up! Give it ten minutes and open it then, you’ll see that Mineta is a good pal.” Izuku barely acknowledged it, leaning against the wall. He looked sad, frustrated, even a little bit disappointed. Mina didn’t know exactly what to say, but she thought that the zero gravity would relax them a bit.

Twelve minutes later, the ship slowed down almost to a halt, and Mina knew that Mineta had brought the ship to where he had mentioned “Let’s go, Izuku!”

With little energy, Izuku followed her outside out to space. Their boots latched on, they walked up the side of the ship, and then they beheld the most wonderful thing Mina had ever seen. “That…that is the Horsehead Nebula!” said Izuku, pointing at the beautiful swirls of matter, ethereally shaped into the head of what Mina’s dad had called a “horse”.

A cloud of gas and a nursery of stars, the nebula was home to a few systems, none too famous, except for Noveria in the Pax system, which had been a battleground between the Geth and the Spectre Shepard. “Mina, remember when we saw that supernova?”

Remembering the fire they had somehow evaded, Mina shuddered “Let’s not try that again, Izuku”

“I meant just watching it, you and me…this is even better. I think we should ehhh, sit down.”

He sat, and Mina did the same, staying close together, their shoulders touching. “That dark cloud with the shape is probably the nicest looking dust I have ever seen! Oooh, Izuku! Imagine if we got close, how much it would make me sneeze!” They both laughed, and Mina was happy that he wasn’t so gloomy anymore.

“And all that red, purple, pink…floating in space, I never knew that ionized hydrogen looked so nice. I mean, I had seen this nebula in pictures but this…Right now, I am happy. And I don’t feel alone. I…like being around you Mina, I really do.”

“I like being with you too, Izuku. You are probably the kindest human I’ve ever met, I…well, I was expecting something very different when I was told that the humans were the ones that would be helping us.”

“Help? Oh, yes. I’m really sorry that we failed the mission, I maybe…maybe I could have done something an-”

“Hold up! You helped me make sure that Tooru and Momo were alright, and we got tons of data on the Geth! Maybe you didn’t get that space pirate _boshtet_ , but you definitely succeeded with me!”

He was quiet for a while, but from the experience of living her whole life among people with helmets, Mina could see a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, at least metaphorically. Then he raised his head again, and asked “Mina, something’s been bugging me a little…why did you want to go dancing when your friends were alone in Haestrom, among the Geth?”

She smiled inside her helmet “I thought you’d never ask! And that you’d think I was insensitive to poor Tooru and Momo’s situation!” she laughed a little “Well, two things…actually three. First, I know how long it takes to load a ship, and I saw a few of the containers en route to the ship just before the thugs attacked me, so I thought that it would still be a few hours. So, I could fret and worry, and feel that time was going slowly, or I could have some fun!”

“Is that reason two?”

“Sort of! The flight to the Citadel was very long, my legs were all cramped, and dancing is super fun! That’s two!”

“And three?”

“You promise not to laugh?”

“I would never laugh at you, Mina!”

“Okay…because I like you. I liked you from the moment you took me to that scary doctor and every little moment since then! And I think I was pretty obvious all along…so, you like me too?”

“What? How? YES! I really really like you too!”

“Awesome! A confession among the stars! That’s some _Fleet and Flotilla_ style thing!”

“Wait…you like _Fleet and Flotilla_?”

“Are you kidding? It’s probably my most favourite film ever! That girl has such a cool voice, and the Turian is so noble! Wait…is that the reason you like Quarian girls?”

If there had ever been a blush that could be seen through an armoured N7 helmet, Izuku was wearing one now! “I uhh…yeah. I like smooth, silky voices and the mystery of not knowing what’s behind the helmet! Please don’t tell anyone!”

“Haha! The mystery! Maybe I shouldn’t have revealed my face to you!”

“But you…but I…well, you are really pretty! There!” sighing as if it had been an extremely difficult task to say that, Izuku threw himself back to the ship’s hull, as if he was on some bed.

“My voice isn’t that smooth though. And you should hear admiral Daro Xen’s voice! She makes my brain all tingly!”

“Your accent is really adorable, and I do like your voice a lot!”

“Accent? What accent? Emerrrrgency Induction Porrrrt! See? Not even a hint!” Both laughed and moved a bit closer still, watching the nebula, every little fluctuation in the hydrogen sending ripples of colour, red and pink, across the entire thing. Suns blinked in and out of vision, when dust particles moved in the way. And the stars around them, everywhere, were so bright and beautiful…

“I want to know more about you, Izuku. Could you…could you tell me about Earth?”

“I haven’t been there in three years…it is a gorgeous planet. Blue skies and bluer seas, the bright green of bountiful plants, the cities a marvellous collection of spires and monuments. Earth…the Alliance has used every new technology we have made, everything we have learned from the Asari, from the Turians…and they have made Earth a jewel. Before the First Contact War, there were still some problems with overpopulation, but, in almost thirty years, Earth has thrived. And humanity is living better than ever. Every little nook and cranny of the Sol system, like my home planet Pluto, is home to at least a settlement! Pluto is the second biggest military base in Alliance space!”

In his excitement, Izuku had sat back up, passionately gesticulating toward the stars “And we have spread to all corners of space; Bekenstein, the Citadel…humanity isn’t alone in space, and now we have friends!”

They were very close, and Mina felt more attracted to him than ever before…She gently placed her head on his shoulder, saying “Tell me about home, Izuku”

“Pluto…it is still a bit cold, even with the paraterraforming. But there’s no better weather to enjoy a nice meal with friends in a cosy bar or restaurant. Some of the Earth born settlers say the place feels a bit like Alaska, at least the weather and the sort of camaraderie among the people. But Pluto has millions more inhabitants that Alaska ever had!”

“You said it was a military base?”

“It is home to the biggest guns in the Alliance, they can shoot clean through any capital ship known…except perhaps that Sovereign ship Shepard took down a year ago. And there’s a fleet moored there too, half the home fleet!”

“That sounds like a lot of people…maybe as many as the entire Migrant Fleet! In just one planet! It really is just like dad had said!”

“Your dad…he is the one that was human, right?”

Mina sighed. Some mornings, before she was fully awake, she’d think that her dad was still alive, and she’d look around and try and find him…and come face to face with reality.

“Yeah, he was. An explorer who made contact with the Quarians. The first human ever. He met a Quarian girl his age when the Migrant Fleet intercepted his one-man vessel, she was one of the marines who searched the ship. He believed in love at first sight, she didn’t. It took a couple of years while dad worked on a translator of human to Quarian languages, and slowly they fell in love for real. My mom always said he was a dork, and she ended up liking that a lot! They married, and dad joined the crew, adding his little ship to the fleet.”

“That…that sounds like a great love story! Learning an entire language just to tell someone you love them…that is beautiful.”

“They wanted to be together in every way possible, so they researched a way to have, well…me. I’m not exactly sure what it entailed, but there was some Asari and Salarian tech there used, and then I was born!”

“Mina is that…you’re a miracle!” He took her gloved hand in his, looking at her as if he had seen a truly marvellous thing.

“Well, my parents had to pawn both their ships for that, so I better be!”

“You are…I…I don’t know what to say”

“Miracle child or not, it doesn’t matter. The Quarians accepted me with pretty much no discrimination. We are a very social people, even if we will never see each other’s faces until marriage! And I contributed to society; I did a bit of repairs, I could grow food, and best of all, I can pilot!”

“Can I just say that, even without me liking you and all that…you’re the best pilot I have ever seen? Making it through that supernova was some seriously great flying!”

“I ehhh…I may have trained half to death after…something. I…have only told a few people about this Izuku, but I trust you. A lot. So…” she sighed and started again “So, when I was fourteen, my dad developed this human disease that really started…killing him around the same time that my mom caught shipborne flu. The flu is very deadly against Quarians, and it can be a slow death if the proper care isn’t administered. Dad’s illness…I still don’t know what it was. It terrified me! I would find him beside mom’s bed, kneeling in pain, but he wouldn’t leave her side, not even to get medical care for himself!”

She felt a tear running down her cheek, and the stars growing blurry before her eyes “He thought…that if he left, mom would die. So I took one of the fleet’s ships and I sped as fast as I could to the nearest human settlement. By the time I got a doctor to come with us, with promises of half of the entire ship’s savings, a week had passed! I was about an hour away when I received a video message from my dad…he was about to die. He said he loved me, that he was proud of me, that…”

She couldn’t continue. Loud sobs echoed around her helmet, and she felt the seals around her neck working overtime to flush away the tears. And most of all, she felt Izuku’s arms around her. “I was too late” she said between sobs “If only my ship had been faster, I could have…I could have saved dad”

“Mina…you did everything you could! You can’t blame yourself for that!”

She waited for her suit to wipe her tears a bit and continued “I don’t know. Mom, she made it. She lived through that flu, but she was heartbroken. She pleaded with me to go and find a place with humanity. They would accept me, she said…I couldn’t leave her. I stayed. She’s also gone now, she piloted a fighter against a pirate squadron, outnumbered. I…I think she had been wanting to die for a while. And I never really thought a lot about going to Earth or anything, but…now that you tell me about it, it sounds…almost like home. A real home planet. Not like Rannoch, the home from my Quarian half.”

“Mina, I’m really sorry, I…I’m here for you, now and always, okay? I care for you and I will do my best to see you be happy!”

“Izuku, I…” she was extremely happy about him saying that “I want to see you happy too!”

Mina moved a bit, getting a bit closer and more comfortable, and then…crap, they were both wearing helmets “Keelah selai, stupid need for oxygen and pressurized environments! I want to kiss you under the stars and in front of that hose-head nebula!”

“It is Horsehead, Mina” he said, his voice smug “I’d like to have no biological need like that too, but…maybe in the airlock?”

“An acceptable compromise!”   

Back inside, midway between the ship and space, both helmets were removed and cast off, floating in the zero gravity. Mina threw away her gloves, encouraging Izuku to do the same, and then she took his face in her hands. Every little sensation in her skin felt amplified a hundred times, as she wasn’t used to touching things with her bare hands, let alone another person’s skin. His skin was soft and rough at the same time, small scars and a bit of stubble contrasting with the soft skin on the scruff of his neck…

Izuku’s hands went to her shoulders, then her hips, pulling her closer. Mina held on to his hair and brought him to her, their lips meeting at last. Mina had imagined the kiss quite a few times…but she had never thought she’d be so full of desire, that she would kiss him so hungrily, that…The kiss was everything she had wanted it to be. And it wasn’t the last.

Only a while later, when they had satisfied their desire a little bit, they had gone up again, to see the nebula a good while more. Now they were together, and it felt even better to see the miracle of nature like that.

“So…does that make us boyfriend and girlfriend?”

“Unless that was the human custom for business partners or something, which I’m sure it isn’t…we are.”

“Then…even if the Alliance takes everything from me, we’ll still be together?”

“Keelah selai! Of course we will!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Izuku and Mina may have enjoyed a brief moment of peace, but they are far from done with trouble! See you soon, thanks for reading!


	8. The Trial of Izuku Midoriya

Toshinori Yagi was not used to being called back for military duties, now that he was retired and focused on improving the relationship humanity had with the Council. If only Udina and the rest of the embassy staff had a bit more tact, Toshinori was sure that agreements could be made with all the three big races, and even some of the others.

The Salarians could be convinced with challenging situations, by appealing to their intelligence; Turians were zealous in their honour and would enjoy the deference of being asked for help with military matters, the Normandy and its sister ships being a good sign of the budding friendship!

The Asari were trickier; young Asari were curious about humans, and many even started relationships with them, while older Asari jealously guarded secrets…Even so, Toshinori hoped one day they would get some good common ground and be great friends. The Elcor were the first aliens Toshinori had secured as friends, enthralling them with Haikus from his native Japan, and the Volus had good business partners with humanity! And the Krogans, those beautiful nihilistic dinos, they wanted friendship so desperately, and Toshinori knew that humanity could help them a lot.

The Batarians…Toshinori had little hope of dealing with a race where slavery was widespread. Even for the sake of galactic peace, he had nothing but disgust for slavery.  

And now, it seemed that humans, his own species, were the ones that would give him a headache! A trial? He wanted nothing to do with prosecution or court martials or punishments! He was a man of peace, of exploration, of discovery! The deaths of those Turians in the First Contact War still weighed heavy on him, and the amends he sought to make…not all agreed with them. Not those Terra Firma folks, not Cerberus. Not Endeavor.

So Toshinori dressed back in his old uniform, which now fit him loosely; a wasting disease had taken quite a toll on him, though he had “Detroit Smashed” the illness to hell! “Goddamn, I look like a skeleton. Well, maybe some of that Presidium ramen will start getting a bit of meat back on my bones…”

An aircar met him outside, sent by the admirals who would be conducting the trial he had been invited to. Hackett wouldn’t be able to make it, Anderson was away on urgent business, so they had a couple rear admirals, a vice admiral and captain Hannah Shepard, of the SSV Orizaba, a rising star amongst the brass. And of course, Enji Todoroki.

He made it on time and took a seat in the audience seats, he was just a guest, after all. There were a few other people there already: two young officers, one tall and well built, the other comically short, accompanied by a pretty marine who was holding the tall one’s hand; a few other officers and enlisted servicemen, a Quarian with most unusual legs, a mutation of some kind?

And then, just before the trial started, arrived someone he knew, and his heart sank. Everything had fallen into place, and he knew what was going on. The person was Inko Midoriya, tears in her eyes. And the person on trial was Izuku, Toshinori’s son in all but blood.

 

 

Hawks sat down next to the wizened form of Toshinori Yagi. By the way the retired admiral’s hands were shaking, by the way the woman next to him was crying, Hawks knew that they had put the pieces together. Or maybe someone had talked and told the mother, that was another option.

“Bring the defendant forward!” bellowed Endeavor. How the admirals had allowed Midoriya’s superior officer to also be his judge was beyond Hawks’ comprehension. Had he thrown his money around? Maybe. Ah, there appeared another witness, Shouto Todoroki, seating at the back of the courtroom.

Of course, Endeavor took the chance to yell “SHOUTOOOOOOO!” as he always did. Hawks had picked up on that mannerism very soon.

Then, a pair of marines brought Izuku Midoriya forward. Proud in his uniform, his N7 badge conspicuous in his jacket, and al his service medals showing that he was no criminal. Hawks had too much blood on his hands to get in the way of Endeavor, but he knew that Midoriya had been set up.

“Izuku Midoriya, Commander of the Systems Alliance, with a currently suspended commission, there has been a thorough examination of all evidence surrounding your mission to hunt down and arrest the space pirate Himiko Toga, an alleged Cerberus agent. Based on your claim that you had placed a missile-borne tracker on the enemy ship, which was then disabled using a decryption code, available only to Alliance personnel, we decided to look further into every report, footage and interview with your crew.”

The admiral paused for effect, hoping to elicit a reaction from Midoriya. The young officer stood defiant. “We have found numerous violations of Alliance policy, a case of recklessly endangering the lives of your crew and the condition of your ship, and a good case on aiding the enemy!”

There were murmurs, and even a few muffled screams. That half-Quarian girl that had been so close with Midoriya had almost jumped the railing to the jury floor, but had been restrained by a few marines, yelling that “Izuku never aided the enemy, you _boshtet_!”

“Aiding the enemy is mostly based on this helmet cam footage” said Endeavor, who pointed at a screen showing the point of view from Izuku’s helmet, edited to the moment the enemy agent, Himiko Toga, said “…you are the father, my beloved Izu-Izu!”

“While no such affair has been confirmed, it has cast a doubt on your loyalty, and your leadership abilities. Until such a connection to the space pirate Himiko Toga can be established, though, we will not persecute Izuku Midoriya for it.” Wow, the angry man could be so _merciful_.

“Next, we’ll move on to the numerous violations of Alliance regulations we uncovered, including but not limited to; unauthorized recruitment of xenos, having them serve aboard an Alliance vessel without any paperwork, unauthorized modifications to the standard Alliance Mako in the ship, and the piloting of a military vessel by a civilian, and a xeno, at that. How do you declare yourself, Midoriya? Do you deny recruiting three aliens, and picking up two more as you went? Do you deny allowing the Quarian to pilot our ship?”

“Sir, indeed I recruited those people, on your recommendation! A brief had been sent to me and a rendezvous had been organized before I even knew of my mission! I assumed all had been cleared?”

“What do you think you are, Midoriya? A Spectre? You are just an Alliance officer! Living your fantasies of being a second Shepard…recruiting aliens at your whim! You did not deny allowing the Quarian to pilot, though. What say you?”

“The “Quarian” has a name, sir. She is Mina Ashido vas Qwib Qwib, and she deserved to be addressed with respect, sir.”

“Jury, did you see that act of insubordination? This young man clearly has no respect for the chain of command or the rules which our entire military is based on. He plays fast and loose with our regulations, frolics with aliens, and even worse, he didn’t even accomplish his mission. He put our most expensive ship, currently, in the hands of an untested outsider, and then they went through a supernova!”

“Sir, with all due respect, Mina is the best pilot I know. With her on the helm, we had a chance to tag Toga’s ship!”

“With the tracker that conveniently got remotely deactivated? That is a bit too much of a coincidence, Midoriya. I do not believe you. What else say you in your defense?”

“Sir, while I have been misled and tricked into recruiting the non-human people who helped me, I do not regret having them in my crew. They excelled in their tasks and were vital to all the success we had, even if the main mission objective was not achieved. As for endangering my crew, I accept that I acted recklessly, believing that capturing Toga was of utmost importance. I am ashamed to have out my crew in harms way, and if I had the chance to decide again, I would choose differently. So, I accept the consequences of my actions.”

Next to Hawks, Toshinori Yagi muttered, at first in fear, in despair, then in anger, as he saw the young man be dragged through the mud on technicalities that most of the brass might have overlooked with a single look at Midoriya’s track record. Any other admiral would have at least told the boy that aliens were not yet allowed on Alliance rules, if not just given him permission.

Witnessing Yagi’s despair, Endeavor’s smile grew large and content, and his eyes didn’t leave his old rival as he pronounced a sentence “Midoriya, it seems that it is only fair that your sentence be such, if the jury agrees with me: the _SSV Yuuei_ will be taken from you, you shall be stripped of all rank and dishonourably discharged. And should we find conclusive proof of connection to Himiko Toga and Cerberus, you shall be tried again. The jury shall adjourn to-”

He was interrupted by a furious Yagi, who had risen and spoke with the most natural authority in his voice, every fibre of Hawks’ being wanted nothing more than to follow Yagi to hell and back. “Todoroki! Stop this farce! The charges are unjust, and the policy is outdated! We are living in a new era, and humanity can’t fight alone! Can’t you see it, Todoroki? Izuku chose the best people to help him make the galaxy a safer place, to end his career based on that would be a tragedy!”

Of course, Endeavor didn’t take the interruption with humour “Just because you disagree with our rules, with our way of life, all in your xenophilic dream of mixing humanity with all these races, it doesn’t mean there are consequences! And your bastard son broke a good number of our rules, Yagi!”

The rest of the admirals were divided, between quietly accepting Enji Todoroki’s xenophobia, and between loudly condemning it. Hannah Shepard was the first to speak up “Admiral! This is beyond the case, you are insulting a retired officer! Admiral Yagi deserves our utmost respect!”

“I will not apologize for hurting the feelings of some xeno-loving failure!” Oof, Endeavor had just lost control in front of the people he got his power from, a pretty bad move. And furthering the grudge he bore against Yagi in public…an even worse move. But was it just what he had planned?

In the defendant’s podium, Izuku Midoriya tore free from the arms of his guards and rushed at Endeavor, screaming “I wont let you insult All Might like this! Never!” But the guards caught him, and dragged him back.

“Witnesses…you saw that. Midoriya, fuelled by his passions, tried attacking an appointed judge. This borders on treason! With such an act, we can expedite the trial. Midoriya, consider yourself a civilian again!”  Tanking his own approval with the brass to sink Midoriya? Endeavor was truly a piece of shit. Still, he was his boss, and Hawks would rather not exchange the glamorous life of a black ops problem solver for that of a pencil pusher back in Arcturus.  

Using the defendant “attacking” him, even when it seemed like Midoriya would at most yell at Endeavor, had made the rest of the jury powerless to rule in Midoriya’s favour. A dirty move. But not the last word.

“Endeavor, I have always treated you with the due respect to a colleague and fellow officer, but this…your grudge against me and my friends, and your blinding xenophobia have turned you into a monster. Ruining a young man’s career, and for what?”

“For humanity”

Before there could be more fighting between the two men, Shouto Todoroki spoke from the back of the hall “No, father. You are doing it for your own damn pride, your legacy. Touya, Natsuo, Fuyumi and me, we’re all just a legacy for you, not people, and you are destroying Izuku’s career because you think he got what I should have. Well, guess what! If you are kicking my friend from the Navy, I’m quitting too!”

“Son, you can’t do this!”

“I can’t? Watch me” Shouto took off his dogtags and threw them to the floor, quickly walking away from the room.

Chaos erupted, people talking all at once, movement and confusion. The guards keeping Midoriya in place were distracted, so they were unable to stop the Quarian girl from running to his side, hugging him and refusing to move.

Hawks’ earpiece then clicked alive, before Endeavor’s angered screams almost took his head off “You have to go find my son, Hawks!”

“You bastard, my ears are sensitive! If I get hearing loss from you, I’m gonna get angry with you, boss!”

“Hawks, it is an order”

“Sure, boss. I’m on it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading!


	9. Izuku Midoriya, just a civilian

Himiko Toga was ever so grateful that the Illusive Man had tested adding a bar to a ship first with her _Stain_. After that little stunt she had pulled, she needed some strong alcohol. Maybe some human blood. Maybe make an actual Bloody Mary? Sadly, the fridge only had whiskey, ryncol and a bunch of other liquors of all colours and tastes…She picked some vodka and poured herself a glass, before Dabi barged in, uninvited.

“Toga, that supernova was too close, we could have died!”

“But we didn’t, Dabi. And thanks to your black ops friend giving us that decryption code, we made it safely and not tracked!”

“He’s my boyfriend, and I’m proud of that, Toga. He’s the only person I smile when I talk about.”

That made Toga adopt a less threatening expression for him “That is really sweet, Dabi! I’m glad for you! But your bf working for daddy dearest worked for us this time, didn’t it? Do you still hate him that much?”

“Toga, he is the worst person I have ever met. And I have met you.”

“Let me guess…he is racist against aliens?”

“We are both working for Cerberus, Toga, that isn’t the worst.”

“Oooh, am I gonna have a game of “guess the backstory” with you?”

“I still hate you a lot, you shithead. Fine, give a guess.”

“But you’ll guess my past too, okay?”

“Screw you”

“Let’s see…He married your mother, a woman with strong biotics, likely one of those at that Alliance program? Poor sods, they have it rough. I guess then that your mom had little choice in the matter, and that you and your siblings are product of a horrible relationship?”

“That is…somewhat close, but no. Toga, I am a clone of my father.”

That was unexpected, so much so that Toga spat the vodka she had been drinking. “A clone? Is this a joke? Not funny, man. If you are trying to prank me, I swear by my Izu-Izu’s precious face that I will blast you out the airlock!”

“It is the truth, I ran away because I found out!”

“This is very much out of the blue, what should I do with this information, Dabi?”

“Help me get my brothers and sister away, and I will serve in your crew forever.”

“If they are at the Citadel, sure. We can go on a kidnapping spree!”

“Wait…really? You’re going to help me?”

“Dabi, now that I know you are probably a five-year-old clone with accelerated aging, I cant just treat you like shit all the time! And thing is, we’ll have a paycheck to spend, our faces aren’t that known, and the Citadel has good shops. And Izu-Izu might be in trouble, my gut tells me so, so we’ll save him, then he’ll fall on love with me and we’ll get married and then we’ll rule space, drink the blood of the Illusive Man and the Shadow Broker and All for One…”

“As long as we can get my family away, I’ll even listen to your creepy plans.”

“You just have no appreciation for romance, Dabi, you uncultured swine. Anyway, how the hell is cloning a thing? And what about your siblings?”

“Endeavor used tons of money and influence on the ExoGeni corporation, and they made…me. They told him it was the peak of human science but…Hawks told me that it was all stolen Krogan research. Yeah, Krogan, I’m just as surprised. There’s this warlord, Okeer, trying to cure the Genophage, and he made some sweet advances in cloning…and ExoGeni stole everything. The guy didn’t even keep the tank they grew me in.”

“This is honestly kinda cool. How did they make humans in a Krogan machine?”

“I have no idea. But thing is…it made me a direct clone of Endeavor, and it let him add imprints in my brain. The biotics I have…I can use them so well because of that!”

“How about the others?”

“After I ran away, Endeavor went on damage control, bringing out two other clones, hastily made, combining the DNA with a biotic from Grissom Academy called Rei. ExoGeni thugs kidnapped her and took three samples of bone marrow. One for Natsuo, one for Fuyumi, and one for Shouto, for when all my “controversy” had died down. Natsuo and Fuyumi are not soldiers, and he wants one. He wants Shouto to climb up the ranks and become a dictator for humanity, for Endeavor’s goddamn pride.”

“Forgive my Quarian, but what a boshtet. A clone dictator of humanity would not let me live a cosy life as a space pirate goddess, so let’s go kidnap your brother.”

 

 

Izuku Midoriya paced around his quarters in the _SSV Yuuei_. Or at least, the room that had been his. Ordered to collect his few personal belongings and deliver the rest in a properly labelled box, Izuku worked on autopilot, absentmindedly picking around a few t-shirts and a pair of boots. All this, all his life, the past five years…gone. Gone in a trap that he had been to blind to see. Endeavor getting him in contact with aliens…he should have known.

He took his helmet in his hands, the N7 helmet he had customized and saw his reflection in the visor, a very sad Izuku, who had been played for a chump. Endeavor had shouted his enmity for Toshinori Yagi and for Izuku for the entire world, and had insulted Yagi, and it had all been over. No trial, just a sentence. The bastard knew that Izuku would defend his idol, his mentor, the closest thing he had to a father; of course he would react in anger, and ruin his chance for a fair trial.

And Shouto throwing away his career for the injustice…Izuku hated seeing his friend ending the two years they had know each other, the academy, aboard the same ships…all of that. Shouto deserved success from his own effort, as he often said. Didn’t Endeavor himself see the damage he did to his son’s career? Shouto was a good officer, and he could succeed on his own!

Well, at least Izuku had one friend now as a civilian. And with the skills he had, he could join C-Sec, or pilot a merchant ship or… “IZUKUUUUUU!”

Mina had opened his door and rushed in to hug him, throwing him down onto his bed. “Mina…you’re strangling me…”

“Oh, sorry…I was…I’m just so happy I found you!”

“Found me? What do you mean?”

“Me and Tooru got my ship out of the hold before any Alliance people got on board, and I wanted to ask you to come with us!”

“Would…would you really do that for me?”

“We are kinda a couple, aren’t we?”

“Well, yes, but I couldn’t…”

“Don’t be silly! I have a whole idea ready! Wanna know the plan?”

Izuku sighed and hugged Mina again “That is so much better than my current idea of being the ramen restaurant’s bouncer.”

“But I haven’t even told you yet!”

He buried his face in her shoulder and held on tight “I know…I’m so lucky to have met you.”

“I’m lucky too! Anyway, how about we drop Tooru back at the Migrant Fleet and go see Earth! We can take up odd jobs to pay for food and travel a lot!”

“What the hell…let’s do this! There’s a ton of places I want to show you! I just wish I had the money to travel comfortably but…”

“Worry not! Quarians are always just a step above dirt poor so I can handle it!”

They hugged for a while more, then Mina decided that the room was clean enough, and she removed her helmet. “If you’re never again gonna use this room, might as well make out here, right? I’ll help you pack if we…make a mess.”

And making out was just the beginning that night.

 

 

“Ah-choo!” sneezed Mina, while Tooru eyed her suspiciously. “You seem to have caught up some bacteria, Mina…” In response, Mina not-so-discreetly looked at Izuku, who looked somehow even more attractive in civilian clothes; t-shirt, jeans, boots and a leather jacket. Maybe a shot of antibiotics would keep her healthy long enough to go out in human clothes sometime? Food for thought!

“Well, so what’s the plan?”

Izuku started “I packed everything, and Endeavor’s people would…would kick me out the navy. The official papers are already in my omni-tool.”

“What did they let you keep, friend?” asked Tooru.

“I have a few sets of clothes, some shoes, and my Carnifex, I bought that with my own money. I’ve got some savings too, but it isn’t much…”

“Izuku, it’s already a great help! And it will be a good fund for two travellers!”

“Two? Wasn’t Momo also with you girls?”

“She left quietly with Hatsume when the Alliance started getting angry and stuff! She has a ton of cash, she can make it back to Ilium!”

“That’s a relief! Anyone else do anything while I was…you know…under arrest?”

“Bakugou went to a bar and stayed there, and the rest are still Alliance so they kind of kept their places, I guess.”

“Of course not, here we are!” said Iida, who was accompanied by Camie Utsushimi and Mineta.

“Guys, you probably don’t want to be seen with me…”

“Nonsense! We agree with your point of view that limiting ourselves to just human on board is not what’s best for the mission. And also, before you left I wanted to invite you to our wedding. Me and Camie’s. Yeah. Would you…be the best man?”

Well, that was unexpected. Had he mentioned at some point getting married? He knew Iida and Utsushimi were quite serious about their relationship “Oh yeah! When that supernova! When would this be? I…I’m hoping to get far away from Endeavor before he can continue ruining my life, if you know what I mean.”

“Our next big shore leave would be at Earth, in six months! You gotta wear a tux, or bae will look bad!” said Utsushimi, never much of a formal person.

“Then this is farewell for some time, Mido…what the heck, you aren’t my commanding officer now, you’re now Izuku and I’m Tenya, and I will give you a goodbye hug!” Izuku returned the hug and bid them good luck, and kept going with Mina and Tooru.

They were headed first to the hotel where Endeavor’s people had placed his mom, Inko. With some luck, Yagi would also be there, and he would get a chance to say how thankful he was for everything, for how much he had defended him in the trial, for the life he had offered Izuku. And how sorry he was that he had made a mistake and had thrown it all away.

The receptionist passed them through, though eyeing the two Quarian girls suspiciously. In a modest room in the third floor they had given inko Midoriya a room; it made Izuku angry to see that not only had Endeavor flown his mother halfway across the galaxy to witness her son’s humiliation, they had spent the bare minimum to do so.

“Mom!” he said, the moment Inko opened the door, hugging her. The circumstances were bad, but he had nothing but love for the woman that had raised him singlehandedly and had taught him right from wrong.

“Izuku! Son!” Inko’s hug was warm and it reminded him of home. “I’m glad you’re alright! That…that bastard set you up, I know! I know, Toshinori knows…They took your career, son!”

“Mom, I am not out of options, don’t worry. I will make sure you are alright no matter what. And…if the Systems Alliance really wants to have those…attitudes, I think I can help people better on my own.”

“Izuku…I’m proud of you. I know you are not in the wrong here. But…are you going to introduce your friends?”

Izuku smiled proudly and said “This is Tooru Hagakure, of the Migrant Fleet, and…this is Mina Ashido, and she is my girlfriend!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading!


End file.
